The Rise of Viblogging: A Fundamentally New Way to Explore Ideas
“what you know that you don't know” > “what you know”
Remember the early days of blogging? It started with tech-savvy individuals sharing their expertise through carefully crafted posts. You needed to be an expert (hopefully), or at least knowledgeable enough, to write about a topic. But something truly revolutionary is happening now – the emergence of fundamentally different approach to knowledge exploration.
I've always been curious about how things work. With the physical world, it's fairly easy - you just take the thing and take it apart. With code, you go through the codebase and understand how it works. But what about ideas and concepts? Even books? Book, essentially is an idea space built by another person.
vibe + logging
Viblogging (vibe + logging) isn't just another content format – it's a paradigm shift in how we interact with knowledge. Unlike traditional blogging (expertise → sharing), journaling (reflection → documentation), or even dialogue (exchange → understanding), viblogging creates a unique intersection where exploration happens in real-time with an AI system, and this process itself becomes the valuable content. My personal topic exploration journey can be shared and be used by others.
I've been spending time exploring topics and ideas this way. It's not like journaling, it's not like blogging. It's like having an intellectual sparring partner which kind of knows everything, but I have no clue what it knows. No one does until question is asked. For example, I might want to understand how graphs work and what their characteristics are. We explore it together, then I ask for a summary of our conversation.
Just as Andrey Karpathy recently described "vibe coding" as a new approach to programming, I call this "viblogging" - a documented journey where the questions themselves shape what we discover, and the exploratory process becomes as valuable as the conclusions.
Knowledge as Compressed Space
With the rise of LLMs and chat interfaces, I noticed that these machines aren't just factual answer engines. If they're bad at something, it's presenting precise facts. But they're good with concepts. And it makes sense because, as Andrey Karpathy beautifully put, "these models are lossy compression of information."
This is fundamentally different from how we've interacted with knowledge before:
Search engine approach: A search engine shows you 20 results that match your query, and it's up to you to form an opinion after reading them all. You're still doing the synthesis work.
Traditional research: You gather sources, read extensively, then create your own synthesis.
Viblogging approach: LLMs have already "compressed" vast information into an abstract space that essentially holds human knowledge in conceptual form. The conversation navigates this compressed space, allowing you to explore ideas at speed.
It's like a calculator that can perform any mathematical operation - you just need to know which equation to input. With viblogging, you're navigating a space of compressed knowledge, where asking the right questions becomes more valuable than having answers ready. And in the same way as output of a calculator becomes next input, also with LLm’s the answers lead to better questions.
Why This Creates a Shift
This approach fundamentally transforms our relationship with knowledge acquisition:
From linear to exploratory: Instead of following a pre-defined learning path, you can branch out in any direction your curiosity takes you.
From consumption to co-creation: You're not just consuming information but actively shaping the direction of discovery.
From static to dynamic: Knowledge isn't presented as fixed facts but emerges through dialogue and exploration.
From expertise to curiosity: The barrier to entry isn't what you already know, but what you're willing to explore. In other words, it is not about “what you know” but “what you know that you don't know.”
Speed of Iteration: The New Superpower
There's an interesting principle called Boyd's Law from military: the speed of iteration beats the quality of iteration. Viblogging embodies this principle perfectly. Instead of spending weeks researching a topic before writing about it, you can explore ideas rapidly through dialogue, getting quick insights and understanding the landscape of a topic in real-time.
This rapid iteration helps navigate the Dunning-Kruger effect more efficiently. While you won't become an expert through a single viblogging session, you can quickly move from complete ignorance to informed ignorance, understanding what you don't know and which aspects deserve deeper investigation.
The Art of Effective Viblogging: Tips and Tricks
Here are some tips from my experience:
Don't ask straight questions. Avoid "How to use this hammer for this nail?" Like with everything in life, take time to arrive at the question. Explore the topic, present your context and problem space, and then ask the question. By doing so you are building a rich background for llm to answer your question.
Expand and contract. Explore different aspects of certain topics to understand the building blocks and why they matter. Then make summaries - contract. Mix different fields together in conversation. For example exploring philosophy from math perspective. Human taste and pleasure with chemistry and molecular perspectives.
What do you think? These models don't think in the way humans think. But if you ask this question - “What do you think?” once in a while in conversation, they will have to generate a response taking into account what has been discussed. This generates interesting insights and feedback on what the model has understood.
Be bold. These machines don't care what you ask. Just explore topics you're curious about. Step outside of your comfort zone. Explore chemistry, mathematics, finances, coding, knitting.
Embrace the process. Be willing to think out loud and get comfortable with uncertainty and exploration.
Your expertise isn't in the subject matter – it's in the art of navigation itself.
From Information Retrieval to Idea Exploration
The internet revolutionised how we retrieve information. Search engines gave us the ability to find specific facts and resources with unprecedented speed. But viblogging represents the next evolution – not just finding information but exploring ideas.
When the internet emerged, it became important to learn how to search effectively. Now, with viblogging, we need to learn how to explore effectively – how to ask questions that open up new territories, how to follow interesting threads, and how to synthesize what we discover.
Implications for Learning and Creating
This new approach has profound implications:
Learning becomes visible: The process of understanding is documented, not just the conclusions
Creation becomes exploration: Content emerges from curiosity rather than predefined expertise
Expertise shifts: The value moves from knowing facts to navigating knowledge spaces
Accessibility expands: Deep ideation becomes possible for anyone with curiosity, not just those with formal education
Conclusion
Viblogging represents a fundamental shift in our relationship with knowledge – not just a new content format, but a new way to interact with humanity's collective wisdom. Just as the internet revolutionized how we retrieve information, viblogging transforms how we explore ideas, moving us from knowledge consumption to knowledge navigation. With all human knowledge accessible in "compressed" format, the challenge shifts from knowing how to find information to knowing how to explore conceptual spaces. The speed of this exploration fundamentally changes how we learn and create.
So, ready to start viblogging? Pick a topic you're curious about, start a conversation with AI, and let your curiosity guide the way. The journey of discovery awaits – and perhaps the most valuable discovery will be this new way of thinking itself.
p.s. This article is a result of a viblogging session. Here is a raw viblog. I'm always full of ideas and concepts and it is now always easy to put together an article. Viblogging is my way of doing it. AI augmented.