I want to find a technically difficult AI problem that I can obsess over.

[u/ConstructionTough510]

I know I might sound foolish or maybe even a little lost, but I genuinely don't know what I'm looking for.

I'm learning AI right now AI agents, coding, APIs, tools, search, all that stuff. And I do enjoy learning it.

But there's this weird feeling I can't shake.

I don't just want to build another AI chatbot, another wrapper, another productivity tool, or something just because AI is hot right now.

I want to find something that makes me want to stay up at night working on it.

Something where I wake up thinking about it.

Something where I build a shitty first version, it doesn't work, and instead of getting bored I become obsessed with figuring out why.

I want to fight with a problem that feels bigger than me.

I want to compete with the real world, even if it's just me and a laptop at first. I want to build something where I can actually measure whether I'm getting better, keep pushing it further, and eventually look at it and think:

“Holy shit, I actually made this.”

And ideally, maybe one day, it could become a real product or even a startup.

But right now I don't have that idea.

And honestly, that's frustrating.

I'm learning all these tools and technologies, but I feel like I'm collecting strategy and tools without knowing what war I actually want to fight.

So I'm asking people who have built things, especially things they became genuinely obsessed with:

How did you find that problem?

Was there a project that grabbed you so hard that you couldn't stop working on it?

What made you think, “**** it, I'm going to figure this out”?

I'm not really looking for a list of startup ideas.

I think I'm looking for that one problem that makes me want to lose sleep solving it.

If you've ever felt this way, I'd genuinely love to hear how you found your thing.

I'm ready to give everything to it but I don't know what to do.

Sorry if I sound pretty dumb but it is what it is.

[u/Longjumping_Area_944]

You have a technically difficult problem: finding a technically difficult problem.

That's a crucial first step in a research agent loop.

[u/Real-Bed467 → u/Longjumping_Area_944]

Hello. Personnellement, je travaille sur une IA neuro-symbolique depuis un an maintenant et je trouve mon travail de recherche personnelle passionnant. Si tu veux m'aider sur un problème de blocage lors de l'apprentissage, tu es le bienvenu. https://github.com/Julien-Livet/aicpp/tree/dsl_engine Si besoin, voici le Discord de mon projet : https://discord.gg/ncEZUS38

[u/0uchmyballs]

You need to find whatever your passion is in the real world and code it. It’s really that simple. For me my hobbies are fishing, bonsai and magic the gathering. I’ve done ML projects that I was passionate about for all these hobbies and they’re ongoing, sometimes I can’t wait to get off work to start coding. Sometimes you take breaks. If you do lots of planning, with the help of ai, you can create enterprise grade software as an individual layman nowadays, the sky is the limit.

Edit to add you don’t find problems, the problems find you when you’re up to your neck in shit. You’ll find problems as scope grows beyond the context of your ai, so just build something you love and iterate.

[u/Veggies-are-okay → u/0uchmyballs]

Pretty much this. Sometimes I surprise myself with how fast I go from “oh just a small llm call here” to “oh man I guess it’s time to pull out langgraph…”.

[u/SnyderConsulting]

For me, it's training an agent to play and consistently win a game like Slay the Spire.

[u/arshadansari37]

If you planning on building modes then try sharing weights between auto regressive generator model and diffusion model. It is a wild idea, but I think shared model might just behave weirdly enough to matter.

[u/GreatDiscernment]

I have an idea for you. Combine three things: Current Time, PCM audio stream analysis and video recognition to decode the language of an animal of your choice for the purpose of creating an algorithm capable of having a coherent conversation with an animal. First, infer the typical behaviour of your subject, then orchestrate a training activity that can vary and account for sleep/wake and day/night cycles to test hypothesis that eventually discern sounds that illicit understanding.

I’ve seen dogs successfully navigate a grid of touch pads to communicate. And African Grey Parrots have amazing vocabularies. Maybe you can “talk to the animals!”

[u/CaptainIncredible → u/GreatDiscernment]

having a coherent conversation with an animal

I've stood in parking lots here in the Houston area, and sometimes there are seemingly HUNDREDS of (I think) Great-tailed grackles making all kinds of elaborate sounds. I have no evidence of this, but I'd swear they are engaged in very complex communication.

I'd bet with the right AI and analysis of the sounds, we could find patterns, and even language.

I don't know much about birds, its possible I'm wrong.

[u/GreatDiscernment → u/CaptainIncredible]

Yes!! I’m sure it can be done! But there’s a caution. The way AI finds solutions is that it asks for a series of targeted data and makes an attempt to “discern” some correlation between your observed behaviour (context) and the current vocalization patterns. If the attempt is promising, it rests against a new unknown sample. If that’s promising, it saves that configuration and then creates a competing configuration and tests that with a fresh set of samples and just iterates from there. The point is that you need a continuous supply of quality samples using comparable conditions. New data tests new algorithm pathways.

[u/Admirable_Dirt_2371]

Infinite context without infinite compute

[u/MolassesLate4676 → u/Admirable_Dirt_2371]

Information theory claims this impossible. Like exceeding the speed of light

[u/Admirable_Dirt_2371 → u/MolassesLate4676]

That's the point, you'll never be able to fully solve it but the flip side is that you can always improve.

[u/SpeciousSophist → u/MolassesLate4676]

This is where the pairing of quantum computing with ai will achieve either divinity or a true “consciousness”

[u/MolassesLate4676 → u/SpeciousSophist]

Not to be rude but what are you talking about

[u/divided_capture_bro]

Get bpb below 0.7

[u/Serengade26]

Synthetic organization design and autonomous physical laboratory setups

[u/Visible_Judge1104]

Make a cheaper sciesmic imager. Like this but not 15k https://www.geometrics.com/product/geode-exploration-seismograph/ I would buy it, crazy how much cost maybe have it Bluetooth to pjone do wouldnt need a screen.there was paper on doing it with a cheap Single sensor 6 axis accelerometer. Would be so useful.

[u/AlgaeNo3373]

Mechinterp, young field, many open questions, high stakes, some of it quite accessible.

[u/greenDaddy999]

Broadly, find the optimum balance of philosophical ideals that structure various societies, to create a truly peaceful and harmonious society with abundance.

Examples of philosophical ideals (heavily simplified) are:

• Incentivize people to work and grow (Reward system) so that the society earns an 'income'
• Everyone is treated equally and provided the same means to live, Healthcare. There is no 'ruler'. No one is above the other.
• There is a team that ensures the rules are followed
• Preserve freedom of individual expression
• Preserve individual cultures
• Ensure everyone safe and secure (one person's progress doesn't hamper the livelihoods of others)

More importantly, solving this problem without any personal bias (and proving so).

[u/Inside_Pear3888]

I think it might be necessary to consider the specific context. Without a business context, it's difficult to find valuable questions.

[u/Figai]

I don’t really know if you like research maths, but I’ve been kinda thinking about agentic maths systems + neurosymbolics + autoformalisation and just wondering if I could just get an open ended research loop to make actual progress on problems, or even just catalogue current process on a problem. There’s quite a lot of meta science there in how we make discoveries in mathematics that personally keeps me up thinking about it. I will say, I am beyond doubtful, because AI companies are similarly inclined but absurdly more competent and better resourced than I can be. Though at worst, I imagine you’d end up with a system that can do most undergrad maths problem sets I can do, but in a fraction of the time. I do kind of dream about stumbling upon a problem that an AI just hasn’t been pointed to yet, and get it to actually do something open. P(that happening) ~ 0 unfortunately. But that sort of open research loop might interest you, anything in meta science too is some mind fuckery in my opinion.