I've been developing a new service here, and it is called Four Ideas. You will get the first edition today, if all goes well.
The gist: Four Ideas is a new AI-driven approach to coming up with ideas based on hidden dynamics in the world around us. Paid subscribers will get Four Ideas daily at 5am EST, while free subscribers will get Four Ideas once a week, on Sundays. More on that below and in the FAQ.
Four Ideas contains two things:
- For a leader section it also checks the front pages of major publications and summarizes top stories in a compressed ticker called "tl;dr".
- For the second and main section, it analyzes thousands of news stories every day, looking for interesting signals and connections. One section contains four ideas based on that wide-ranging analysis.
Combined, a typical issue looks like this:
What Four Ideas Is
Four Ideas is your own thoughtful analyst. It consumes thousands of stories via AI, while applying some complex heuristics that I have iterated on heavily and continue to do so. The heuristics make Four Ideas more likely to find patterns, complexities, connections, nuances, and ideas that escape humans.
I think of Four Ideas as like a smart young analyst at a hedge fund who never sleeps, reads everything, makes connections (sometimes surprising), and then sends you a succinct morning note that start with, "Here is an interesting idea, see what you think ...".
In practice, once Four Ideas finds things that meet its criteria—and that can range across macroeconomics, consumer products, life sciences, trade, technology, and more—it condenses the idea to three things: a headline, a justification for the idea, and some related linked headlines. It considers scenarios, connections, and things that might play out over time, not merely later that day.
What Four Ideas Is Not
Four Ideas is not simply a faster reader of headlines, nor it is it a headline aggregator. As a matter of fact, it is arguably the opposite. It is slower, more thoughtful (within the many constraints of current large language models), and less reactive. It is not something around which you would build some millisecond trading algorithm. But it is something that can make you smarter with new ideas and ways to think about the world. I know that I already rely on it a lot.
How You Can Get Access to Four Ideas
- Free subscribers: If you are an existing free subscriber, you will get a once-weekly Sunday edition of Four Ideas for free. If you like it, you can upgrade to paid and get Four Ideas daily. Or you can keep getting it on Sundays for free.
- Premium subscribers: If you are an existing paid subscriber, you get Four Ideas daily with your current subscription.
- Upcoming: There are other variants coming. There are also group/company subscriptions for five or more people at the same company email domain.
FAQ
Why are you doing this?
This started as trying to solve a problem for me, and then I decided it might be something other people might appreciate. More broadly, I am interested in better heuristics for interestingness. It is a difficult problem in natural language processing, one that LLMs have made more tractable.
When does Four Ideas start coming?
If you are a paid subscriber, you will start getting it this week. Look for it in your email. If you are not a premium subscriber, you will get Four Ideas on Sundays.
How do I start getting Four Ideas?
If you are a paid subscriber, it will start coming immediately. If you are a free subscriber you must upgrade to paid, whereupon you will get a free seven-day trial. After that seven-day trial you can continue as paid and keep receiving Four Ideas, or go back to being a free subscriber again.
What if I don't want Four Ideas?
Just click "unsubscribe" in any Four Ideas email, or go to your account profile. If you are a premium subscriber and unsubscribe from daily Four Ideas, you will get the Sunday edition only. If you are only getting the Sunday edition and you unsubscribe from that, you won't receive it anymore either.
Are you just scraping sites?
No. I'm doing something considerably more clever, I think. At some point I'll explain it further, but the approach is more modular and extensible, and makes much more extensive use of AI.
Will you track performance? Launch an ETF? Take my money?
No, this is not a trading bot. This is a way to try and replicate what a smart junior analyst at a hedge fund might do, reading vast amounts of material and generating interesting ideas about the world, some of which might be actionable. I'm not trying to aggregate headlines, or forage, or novelty-seek. I'm trying to help uncover patterns in the world.
What is the underlying technology?
Four Ideas is built on various open-source technologies, as well as on the various customized large language models. The tricky part isn't the technologies, per se. It is teaching models how to think more creatively, holistically, and integratively, like a smart analyst.
Can I get a Four Ideas about [insert topic here] ?
Stay tuned.
Other questions?
If you have other questions or comments just contact me via the form on this site.