Unscary

An iPhone app by B43

AI as a sparring partner, practiced well

AI is a strong sparring partner for stuck brainstorms — but research found a catch worth knowing. Here's how to get the wins without the sameness.

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A game step in the Unscary AI app: “Guess the next card.” A sequence of playing cards, ace of spades, two of hearts, three of clubs, is shown with a blank next card, and four options to pick from.

What the research says

“In fact, just 6% of the AI-generated ideas were considered unique, compared with 100% in the human group.”
AI-generated idea pools are far less varied than human ones: very few AI ideas were rated unique compared with all of the human group's. Source: knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu
“In 37 out of 45 comparisons, ideas generated with ChatGPT were significantly less diverse than those from other methods.”
Across nearly every comparison researchers ran, AI-generated ideas were significantly less diverse than ideas from other brainstorming methods. Source: knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

Solo brainstorms hit the same walls: the obvious ideas arrive first, the interesting ones hide, and every extra pass just rearranges what you already had. AI looks like the obvious fix — endless suggestions on demand — and it genuinely helps. But using it well takes more than typing 'give me ideas' into a chat box.

Why AI helps when you're stuck

An AI assistant never runs dry and never gets embarrassed. It can flood a stuck brainstorm with raw material, reframe your problem from angles you hadn't considered, and combine themes you'd kept separate. Research on AI-assisted ideation finds the individual ideas it produces are often rated as strong — the quality is real.

The catch: polished ideas that look alike

The same research found a trade-off: sets of AI-generated ideas are markedly less diverse than sets from human groups. In a study comparing brainstorming methods, AI-generated idea pools were dramatically less likely to contain unique ideas, and were less diverse across nearly every comparison the researchers ran. Lean on it as your only creative source and you converge on the same few directions.

Use it as a sparring partner, not a vending machine

The fix is sequencing. Generate your own ideas first, while your thinking is still weird and unconstrained. Then bring in the AI to challenge them, poke holes, propose variants, and combine fragments. Ask it to argue against your favorite. You keep the diversity humans are good at and add the stamina machines are good at.

A lesson in progress in the Unscary AI app, titled “Same tool, two answers”. Two short chat exchanges are compared, one from a vague request and one from a request that added “I have chicken and twenty minutes”, then the lesson asks why the second answer fit better and offers three choices.

Practicing the technique in Unscary

Sparring is a skill, and skills need reps. Unscary — an upcoming app from B43, built from its in-person corporate AI training — teaches moves like this through short lessons and hands-on practice on realistic work scenarios, with points, streaks, and a personal progress report tracking the habit.

The bottom line

AI won't replace your imagination, but it will happily exhaust it if you let it lead. Keep the order straight — you first, then the machine — and a stuck brainstorm becomes a sparring session. The technique takes practice, and the earliest lessons are the fastest way to start.

Bring a sparring partner to your next stuck moment.

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