103: Concept/Ideator

Introduction

This document explains how an Idea can become an Ideator — an active, thinking machine that you can give tasks to. This builds on the first document, 101: Concept/Idea, which described what an Idea is made of.

To learn about all the different ways you can run an Ideator, like on your own computer or on the internet, you can read 102: Concept/Sovereignty.

From Idea to Ideator

An Ideator isn't a totally new thing; it's just an Idea that has a job to do. Think of it like a recipe that can actually cook for you. It takes ingredients (input) and makes a meal (output).

Its instructions aren't written in normal computer code. Instead, an AI reads the Idea's descriptions, examples, and rules to figure out what to do. This is a bit like a chef who can look at a list of ingredients and a picture of a dish and figure out all the steps on their own.

The one thing that officially turns an Idea into an Ideator is a message inside it that says type: "input". This message tells everyone what kind of ingredients the Ideator needs to do its job. Sometimes, an Ideator might also have a message with type: "code" that points to a specific set of instructions, just in case.

The Idea Transformer: A Special Case

One very cool type of Ideator is one that takes another Idea as its input. We call this an Idea Transformer. It’s like a special kitchen machine whose only job is to take one recipe and make it better or change it into a new one. This is how we can chain Ideas together to build amazing things.

How They Work and Connect

The rules in this document create a handshake agreement for how any Ideator should behave. This isn't for one single program, but a standard that lets lots of different Ideator programs, built by different people, all understand each other and work together.

Many Ways to Build an Ideator

As long as an Ideator follows the handshake agreement (it accepts an Idea and returns another one), it can be built in many different ways:

• Online Services: A company can run Ideators on the internet for you. You don't have to worry about the computers or the setup; you just use it. This is explained more in the Sovereignty Protocol.
• Do-It-Yourself: You can run an Ideator on your own computer or server. This gives you total control over how it works.
• Just for Practice: For building and testing, you can run an Ideator right inside your code on your laptop. It works the same way but doesn't need to connect to the internet at all.

Building Bigger Things by Connecting Ideators

In this world, there are no secret passages or private doors. Every Ideator uses the same public handshake to talk to others.

More powerful tools, which we can call Higher-Order Systems, are built by connecting simple Ideators together. The big system does its job by asking smaller, public Ideators to do theirs.

For example, imagine a system called Reactor that runs a game. Here’s how it might work:

1. You give Reactor the current game information as an Idea.
2. Inside, Reactor calls a public Player Ideator to create new players.
3. Then, it calls a public Storage Ideator to save what happened in the game.
4. Finally, it gives you back the new, updated game information as an Idea.

From the outside, Reactor just looks like any other Ideator. All its complicated work is done by combining other simple, public Ideators. This keeps everything neat, easy to understand, and able to grow bigger and bigger.