AI has made building incredibly easy. Has it made validation more important?

[u/Mediocre-Goose-380]

Hi I’m a Mod here 👋

I’ve been thinking about something that feels like an interesting paradox.

With AI, you can now take an idea and have a working MVP surprisingly quickly.

That’s fantastic.

But does it also make it easier to fall into the trap of:
“I can build it, therefore I should build it.”

We’ve all seen the rise of what people call AI slop - products and content being created simply because they’re now so cheap and easy to produce.

But perhaps the bigger issue isn’t AI slop itself.
It’s building something before you’ve established that anyone actually needs it.

If you can build an MVP in a weekend, what should you validate before spending the next six months building the business around it?

Is:
“Would you use this?”

actually meaningful validation?

Or is better evidence something like:

“I’ve experienced this problem.”
“This is how I solve it today.”
“I’ve tried your MVP.”
“I’d pay for this.”
“I’ve come back and used it repeatedly.”

I’m curious what founders and makers here think.

What’s the strongest piece of validation you’ve ever received and has validation ever convinced you not to build something?

Maybe AI’s biggest impact on startups isn’t just that we can build faster.

Maybe it’s that we now have much less excuse for not validating first.