Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42638546

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

With Monograph, you can:

> Tune into yourself: daily practices as easy as taking a picture and deeper exercises as revealing as crafting advice from your future self.

> Hold onto what matters: quickly capture the thoughts, ideas, and memories you don’t want to forget.

> Make sense of it all: get in touch with your feelings, hear what you think and explore what you’re curious about.

Monograph’s intelligence exists to help you tap into yours. It remembers what you’ve shared and draws on what it knows, so you can connect the dots.

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A little backstory, inspired by discussions I've been a part of here on HN:

We think in the rush to figure on what AI can (or can't!) do, there's a missing focus on the potential for augmenting human intelligence that's been opened because computers can now work with you in the same language you use to work with your own thoughts.

Computers have gotten smaller, smarter and have steadily made their way into all facets of life. But, they've always been bound up in a pretty fundamental disconnect from us: they interpret the world as binary whereas we exist on a spectrum of possibilities.

So much of what we think exists in this spectrum and, before the introduction of language models, it was hard, or didn't really make sense unless you're someone with an avid journaling habit, to work with a computer in this much fuzzier space. You always had to first come to some kind of intent.

We think AI has tremendous potential, especially when pointed not at replacing us, but at helping humans be more human. When you do this, computers become machines for figuring it out, not just machines for doing. Now a computer can help you ponder the right questions, instead of just providing you answers. This makes them more a space for your curiosity, and not just for closure. And, because computers are still...computers, they can still proudly do machine things like remember more and think faster than us.

We’ve been fortunate, as we’ve built it over the last few months, to hear stories from folks who have worked with their Monograph. For the person dealing with a challenge running their small business, Monograph invited them to consider who else was on their team. Then they called their brother. For the person trying to let go of stress, Monograph encouraged them to offer themselves the advice they’d give their best friend. Now whenever that stress arises again, they think of their friend. For the new dad who wants to remember it all, taking a photo a day with Monograph has turned their phone, typically a source of distraction, into a daily source of gratitude. These things sound simple, but for these folks the effects were profound.

I know there's a lot of discussion around AI, we think there's a different path to take when focused in this way. I'm excited to hear what the HN community thinks. You can find it at the link and we're offering founding members who join in August a free year of Monograph as a thanks for helping us shape it.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41132998

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40955437

Points: 41

# Comments: 66

Oh, and don’t forget that they’re paying interest on the mortgage and that - when adjusted for inflation - the actual increase in value versus what they’ve paid in in mortgage interest over the years is probably far less than the non adjusted gains it looks like.

It’s pretty easy to demonize owner landlords when you’ve always been a renter because you think only about a monthly payment. I’m not going to tell you that’s it’s a relative luxury to be fixated on one simple payment each month, but it’s also not the case that owning a home as an individual is some kind of pot of gold.

An owner that values their tenant and keeps their rent flat isn’t a saint. But they’re also doing a good thing in a time when they could be - by account of this thread - exploiting people for as much as possible. We don’t need to order them a parade, but it might be worth broadening your understanding of what the cost of a home is before you blanket assume they’re worthy of scorn.

The take on RAG feels application specific. For our use-case where having details of the past rendered up the ability to generate loose connections is actually a feature. Things like this are what I find excites me most about LLMs, having a way to proxy subjective similarities the way we do when we remember things is one of the benefits of the technology that didn’t really exist before that opens up a new kind of product opportunity.

Your analysis is flawed because you’re looking at the problem from the vantage of collective outcomes. A murderer is one person who is making a decision to take an action that can end one or many lives. You want them to weigh that heavily as an absolute cost (I will go to prison forever if caught) not some relative cost (well if I just murder a little then I’ll only get a little punishment).

It’s fair that “we” (the collective human race) have been too optimistic about new things and too sanguine about the cost. That’s why climate change is as bad as it is. That’s why having everyone plugged into social networks makes us sad.

This constant stream of pessimism that started in the 10’s for everything (tech, any institutions, the world) etc is just so..small seeming. Complaining like this makes none of these things better and the ideas expressed in this piece are far from unique. So as criticism goes it fails to even meet that definition.

So why even do it? To feel cool I guess to other people who think being pessimistic about everything is cool?

We’re coming up on a decade plus of this prevailing dour attitude and not a single bit of it has helped forestall anything. Maybe we try a new approach where we treat new things as things to be improved when they’re at the beginning (and therefore most able to be shaped). Maybe we try being cautiously optimistic?

One piece of advice, I found myself this person once - it’s the road to burn out city to be the critical path answer to everyone on the team’s challenges. You sound like someone who is very generous with your time and support. In my experience once people have found a critical path there is no point at which they “stop.” This isn’t because they’re trying to hurt you, they’ve just found the answer so to them it doesn’t seem wrong.

It will take even more of your time, but you ought to consider practicing giving less answers and asking more questions of those who seek your help to try to help them unpack the issues themselves. It will feel more tiring at first, but you’ll gradually help the others learn and also create a small bit of friction that will encourage them to try their own solution or two before seeking you.

Management asks are separate/ they can actually reward you with compensation and promotions for this extra work. But the team asking for help won’t stop when you get more comp unless you start teaching that you’re not the answer.

Expensive to do but hardly the end of Generative AI or OpenAI should that be the difference between having a business or being sued out of existence. Never underestimate people who have a clear economic interest especially when their own existence is at stake.