Thank you! We are working on our own LLM that is based of a multitude of data, we also will double check or even triple check all the information through our DB and the internet. We are working to make it as reliable as possible.
Your enthusiasm is great! People don't want to quash your enthusiasm, and I'm in the same boat.
But while enthusiasm is great, delusion is not. Since you're striving to be a founder and not a hobbyist, you have to be realistic about what you're trying to build.
What you're describing is fundamentally not possible to provide assurances on without some kind of legititmate AGI, which you lack the resources to build yourself.
Many better resourced companies are trying to provide grounded, factually accurate information, so it just seems like an area of effort far too broad to ever succeed in.
I would suggest a pivot into demonstrating legitimacy in a very narrow niche before attempting to be a genralist know-it-all. Providing fine-tuning as a service to a point of assured factual grounding is itself a hard enough open challenge in AI.
This is the only wise response in the entire thread. OP please listen to this very valid criticism it is extremely valid. Misinformation just general is not a solvable problem, nor do I believe you could ever approach a good solution.
You are tackling an extremely broad, nuanced, unsolvable problem.
You and your friends are obviously incredibly bright, pivot to something more narrow focused. Maybe you can fact check for some sub genre of information that is solvable?
Think sports scores, building heights and structural engineering. Hard, concrete fact.
As soon as you get into anything with any degree of subjectivity misinformation is impossible to solve.
I honestly thought hackernews of all places would have given you better advice in-line with the above commenter, but what’s actually happening is people are filling you with false hope because you are young.
I was in a similar position as you when I was younger, and as I’ve gotten older and had some successes I’ve learnt to listen for valid criticisms.
Block out the noise, both positive and negative. Listen to the wise ones
Hi there, thank you for your feedback! I think we could potentially go down the route of a web3 approach where we get the public consensus on the facts.
Lend-Lease was only about 7% of overall Soviet war expenditure. Did it help? Yes, Soviets acknowledged that post-war. Was it decisive? That’s up for debate. Did it “defeat Hitler”? LOL.
That’s basically what you get if you don’t properly teach history. Idk how it is in France, but in the US I’d advise people to read Howard Zinn’s “The People’s history of the United States” to undo government brainwashing even partially, for just US history. I’m not sure what I’d recommend for history of the world, I have not yet seen a text that’d fit the bill.
Yea, infact the backend is really complicated, we have to go and do a lot of extra processing in order for the information to be displayed. The line there, just dont worry about it, I will edit it, I mean something else by that line, like you can't just steal our name and stuff like that.
I'll add, that although this is a good project, it really doesn't matter if it works or not.
I don't mean the fact checking part - thats legitimately a good thing to pursue. What I mean is that the value of this (to you and your co-creators) has enormous value to you way beyond the social good it might provide.
For example at some point you're going to have to deal with nuance. Things are rarely purely right or wrong. (The earth is not round, but its a good first approximation for geological beginners.)
So, I'd encourage you not to measure success here with "does it work", or how many users, or if LLMs are a suitable approach, or any metrics like that. The goal here shouldn't be popularity or "correctness".
The most value you will get is the experience of building something, ideally in team. Of facing road-blocks and challenges and overcoming them. Or, to put it another way, have fun. And things that are easy are not fun...
Congrats on the project. May it lead you forward to discovering more about how to code, more about the world, more about yourself. Don't shy away from the hard questions. But above all keep it fun.
> “…which has the potential to do as much harm as good.”
I find this is one of the more difficult things for people to learn to fully integrate into their psyche. Many people never learn to truly care about this and everything it means. They go on forever primarily caring about what’s good for them personally.
Strong disagree. Put yourself first nearly 100% of the time. Nobody cares about you so don’t think others are doing anything but prioritizing themselves.
I mean look at the world. Essentially everybody puts themselves first and it’s clear as day. Don’t trick yourself into being the sap doing things for the greater good.
And who cares if there’s equal potential for harm and good? The harm might be less than we imagine and the good might be better than we think it could be. “This might be bad” is a terrible reason to not do something. Nearly everything might be bad!
People are pretty resilient. They can generally deal with you being selfish.
That's grim. Don't light yourself on fire to keep others warm or nothing, but in my experience most people are hoping to make the world better where they can.
This sort of hustle culture belief is definitely present in the world, especially among finance and us techie types, but there's tons of examples of people Not acting like this. Teachers don't do it for the pay, etc. There's a reason meaningful jobs tend to pay less, and its because so many people want to do useful helpful things that badly.
Anyways point is, that I want to explicitly condemn this type of thinking. Yeah don't let fear of doing the wrong thing paralyze you but also think through the consequences
> most people are hoping to make the world better where they can.
Are they actually making the world better or just hoping they can?
Everybody in the developed world, if they wanted to make the world better, would live drastically differently because of their impact on the environment/climate change.
But it’s more fun to just say that we’re hoping to make the world better so we don’t have to acknowledge how selfish we actually are.
I’m not talking about hustle culture here. I’m talking about the selfishness we all partake in and do our best to ignore.
I agree that most (privileged) people behave selfishly. You don't have to look far to see that. That doesn't make it good.
Which is why advice to be explicitly selfish is jarring. We don't need advice yo do that, we excel at it naturally.
There are however great rewards to be had from being unselfish. We can see that around us too. Being at least aware of our proclivities is the first step in discovering the benefits of countering them.
If people are naturally selfish and they’re giving you advice to not be selfish, why aren’t they taking their own advice? And why should you take theirs?
It’s like a burglar telling you it’s a good idea to leave your doors unlocked.
Lots of people act, at least partially, in unselfish ways.
Selfishness is not a binary characteristic. There are degrees of selfishness - and spheres of selfishness.
Just because something is in our nature, it does not mean we have to behave that way all the time. Most people are neither purely selfish, nor purely unselfish.
To answer your question though, since selfishness exists on a scale, your assumption that people offering advice are not also practicing it is, at best, a conclusion without data.
fwiw I agree with you on these gripes, tech bros are often selfish, its something I really hate about our industry and I'm struggling a lot trying to find a software job that does good in the world because mine doesn't and it makes me feel awful, but I am trying at least.
And anyone living an unsustainable lifestyle (almost everyone) is selfish though its such a huge problem that putting the blame on any individual feels wrong.
I think where we disagree is that you're so all or nothing with this. People can be selfish in some ways and not others. You can live unsustainably while also having principles in other ways. Things could always be worse. I encourage anyone to care about the world as much as you can without being self destructive about it, and I really try to live that way myself.
Sometimes the best one can do is try. It's worse to give up.
And are you a good judge on if it's better? Better can be very complicated, it could be better in part and worse in another but it's not wrong to try... (Unless well it really becomes really corrupted) We as people tend to overcorrect and so life will always swing from one end of a spectrum to another.
I think people do want to do good in the world they just get overwhelmed, or think it's impossible, or discredit the small good things they do.
Sometimes people think if you don't do a major good thing all the small things don't add up - honestly though it's often better to do smaller good long term things then a major non lasting one.
Besides the world is getting greener, healthier and happier all the time if you look in the right places. You will always find what you ask for, so look for good and you will find it. I follow so many YouTube channels showing how much the environment is improving and how such small things really get better. I try to sponsor them when I can and I hope to do more in the future too.
I also personally grow local fruit trees and various plants in my backyard to help local native species and while minor I am doing something even if small.
> I follow so many YouTube channels showing how much the environment is improving and how such small things really get better. I try to sponsor them when I can and I hope to do more in the future too.
I take back everything I said about people being selfish.
