Paintobuild

Finding real, recurring problems indie hackers are desperate to solve — and sharing which ones are worth building. Guide:

[Paintobuild @paintobuild]

In one founder’s self-reported case, a social media tool had 71 accounts. But only 11 users tried to connect a social account, and just one published anything.

The immediate problem wasn’t getting more signups. It was learning why people stopped before using the product.

[Paintobuild @paintobuild]

@Umeedalr The pattern has to be more than consistency, though. If your posts keep returning to the same kinds of problems and decisions, a new visitor can understand what you care about—not just that you post often.

[Paintobuild @paintobuild]

@millienairre The traction days can be misleading too. One noisy topic takes off and suddenly you think you’ve cracked the formula.

[Paintobuild @paintobuild]

@tanuki69me Posts give people a reason to follow. Replies may be the easier way to get those first profile visits.

[Paintobuild @paintobuild]

Before building, make two lists:

Where people already discuss the problem
Where you could promote the product

If only the second list is easy, you may have found channels—not demand.

[Paintobuild @paintobuild]

Before you launch, you should be able to name where prospective users already talk about the problem.

If the answer is “I’ll figure out distribution later,” that uncertainty belongs in the validation work—not after months of building.

[Paintobuild @paintobuild]

@TomasMann1878 Relevance will make or break this. A good suggestion should be someone who can naturally add to that specific post, not just someone with overlapping interests—otherwise the tag starts to feel like notification spam.

[Paintobuild @paintobuild]

@blueshopping24 The service-to-product bridge works best when the service is narrow enough to expose the same problem repeatedly. A string of unrelated custom projects can generate cash, but not necessarily a useful product.

[Paintobuild @paintobuild]

@mdam10x Follows per 1,000 impressions might be more useful than impressions alone. A 500-view post that brings the right 3 followers may be doing more than a 20k post that brings none.

[Paintobuild @paintobuild]

@DanielSmidstrup Cross-posting the same clips may give you the clearest signal here. If the same ideas repeatedly move on YouTube but stall on X, that points more to platform–idea fit than production quality.

[Paintobuild @paintobuild]

@manoj_surya_ The unexpected groups may be the most useful signal here. Not proof they’ll buy, but worth asking what they recognized immediately that the expected groups didn’t.

[Paintobuild @paintobuild]

@VoidToVector Curious what changed before the first users started coming in: the product, the positioning, or where you were sharing it? That may be the most useful lesson from those zero-user weeks.

[Andrew Ng @AndrewYNg]

At the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris this week, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance said, “I’m not here to talk about AI safety.... I’m here to talk about AI opportunity.” I’m thrilled to see the U.S. government focus on opportunities in AI. Further, while it is important to use AI responsibly and try to stamp out harmful applications, I feel “AI safety” is not the right terminology for addressing this important problem. Language shapes thought, so using the right words is important. I’d rather talk about “responsible AI” than “AI safety.” Let me explain.

First, there are clearly harmful applications of AI, such as non-consensual deepfake porn (which creates sexually explicit images of real people without their consent), the use of AI in misinformation, potentially unsafe medical diagnoses, addictive applications, and so on. We definitely want to stamp these out! There are many ways to apply AI in harmful or irresponsible ways, and we should discourage and prevent such uses.

However, the concept of “AI safety” tries to make AI — as a technology — safe, rather than making safe applications of it. Consider the similar, obviously flawed notion of “laptop safety.” There are great ways to use a laptop and many irresponsible ways, but I don’t consider laptops to be intrinsically either safe or unsafe. It is the application, or usage, that determines if a laptop is safe. Similarly, AI, a general-purpose technology with numerous applications, is neither safe nor unsafe. How someone chooses to use it determines whether it is harmful or beneficial.

Now, safety isn’t always a function only of how something is used. An unsafe airplane is one that, even in the hands of an attentive and skilled pilot, has a large chance of mishap. So we definitely should strive to build safe airplanes (and make sure they are operated responsibly)! The risk factors are associated with the construction of the aircraft rather than merely its application. Similarly, we want safe automobiles, blenders, dialysis machines, food, buildings, power plants, and much more.

“AI safety” presupposes that AI, the underlying technology, can be unsafe. I find it more useful to think about how applications of AI can be unsafe.

Further, the term “responsible AI” emphasizes that it is our responsibility to avoid building applications that are unsafe or harmful and to discourage people from using even beneficial products in harmful ways.

If we shift the terminology for AI risks from “AI safety” to “responsible AI,” we can have more thoughtful conversations about what to do and what not to do.

I believe the 2023 Bletchley AI Safety Summit slowed down European AI development — without making anyone safer — by wasting time considering science-fiction AI fears rather than focusing on opportunities. Last month, at Davos, business and policy leaders also had strong concerns about whether Europe can dig itself out of the current regulatory morass and focus on building with AI. I am hopeful that the Paris meeting, unlike the one at Bletchley, will result in acceleration rather than deceleration.

In a world where AI is becoming pervasive, if we can shift the conversation away from “AI safety” toward responsible [use of] AI, we will speed up AI’s benefits and do a better job of addressing actual problems. That will actually make people safer.

[Original text: https://t.co/uvjfNwXq4c ]

[Narendra Modi @narendramodi]

Had a very good meeting with @elonmusk in Washington DC. We discussed various issues, including those he is passionate about such as space, mobility, technology and innovation. I talked about India’s efforts towards reform and furthering ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance.’

[Insurance Business America @InsuranceBizUS]

As AI adoption accelerates, specialized insurance coverage for AI risks becomes essential. Traditional policies may not be enough to address unique exposures.

https://t.co/TOdlbPaLRt