Hacker News: roromainmain

Ask HN: A tool to share my data?

roromainmain — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 04:01:31 +0000

Hello HN, As a European citizen, I'd love a tool allowing me to easily collect and centralize data I've already shared with FAANG and other large US platforms, for the purpose of sharing (selling?) it to relevant European companies.

I know data portability is challenging, as most platforms are reluctant to make it easy to transfer data to competitors. But I don't expect full portability here: to my knowledge, most major platforms already provide basic export mechanisms, notably to comply with European regulation.

A typical use case: I'd like to collect the two years of conversations I already have in ChatGPT and make them available to Mistral. Other sources could be relevant as well: emails, chats, social media history, search history, etc.

The potential value for a company like Mistral seems significant (?). AI companies need large amounts of high-quality data, and collectively, European users are sitting on an enormous corpus of personal data currently concentrated within US platforms.

I would expect such a tool to have a viral component. Some users might contribute their data to European companies simply because they want to help level the playing field.

In a nutshell: could data existing data portability mechanism become a way for individuals to actively redistribute the data they generated for LLM training purpose?

Does this sound relevant? Technically and legally doable? Could there be a marketplace for this, or another viable business model?

Happy to get involved if anyone wants to build it ;)

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49545792

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by roromainmain in "Dutch central bank moves share of gold from U.S., Canada to London"

roromainmain — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 15:02:15 +0000

Considering the Netherlands’ strategic ties with the US, this sounds like quite a bold move. France doing so was one thing, but the Dutchs have always been rather Atlanticists.

New comment by roromainmain in "Squillions: How money laundering won"

roromainmain — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:35:23 +0000

The usual (gu)estimate is that 1 to 3% of UK GDP is exposed to suspicious foreign wealth. It is estimated to be 15 to 20% of Switzerland GDP today. So indeed, it doesn't make sense for Switzerland to limit circulation of cash or increase tracability.

New comment by roromainmain in "Yann LeCun raises $1B to build AI that understands the physical world"

roromainmain — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 23:09:32 +0000

Agree. LLMs operate in the domain of language and symbols, but the universe contains much more than that. Humans also learn a great deal from direct phenomenological experience of the world, even without putting those experiences into words. I remember a talk by Yann LeCun where he pointed out that in just the first couple of years of life, a human baby is exposed to orders of magnitude more sensory data (vision, sound, etc.) than what current LLMs are typically trained on. This seems like a major limitation of purely language-based models.

New comment by roromainmain in "Yann LeCun's AI startup raises $1B in Europe's largest ever seed round"

roromainmain — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 13:37:02 +0000

Yes indeed, if the company is profitable.

New comment by roromainmain in "Yann LeCun raises $1B to build AI that understands the physical world"

roromainmain — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 12:27:04 +0000

For such companies, France also offers generous R&D tax credits (Crédit Impôt Recherche): companies can recover roughly 30% of eligible R&D expenses incurred in France as a tax credit, which can eventually be refunded (in cash) if the company has no taxable profit.

New comment by roromainmain in "Based on its own charter, OpenAI should surrender the race"

roromainmain — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 18:05:49 +0000

I’m not sure it makes much sense to call this naive. When the issue is a moral one, conflicts like this are almost inevitable. Ethical convictions often collide with political or institutional decisions. If a company decides to work with the military and someone finds that fundamentally incompatible with their values, stepping away may simply be the only coherent option for them. It’s sometimes just moral consistency. Moral inconsistency can create deep inner conflict and real psychological distress. This being said, many queer people (not only trans people) seem to develop particularly inclusive values, perhaps because they have personally experienced the consequences of harassment, exclusion, or violence. Having gone through that kind of experience can make someone more sensitive to the vulnerability of others.

New comment by roromainmain in "Banned in California"

roromainmain — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 18:27:26 +0000

UK isn't EU, especially when it comes to health system. I lived in the US for quite some time (from Fr), the healthcare is great... if you can afford an expensive health insurance AND pay some extra money when required. The avg US people can not pay and when you can not pay the experience is just far worth than terrible.

New comment by roromainmain in "Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin"

roromainmain — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 18:32:14 +0000

Interesting. Your comparison reminds me of something from Lacanian psychoanalysis: the idea that people often mistake themselves for the symbolic labels they occupy, their title for instance. Like a doctor who would praise himself for being a doctor, a president a president. From that perspective, both versions of the Tao Te Ching line point to the same thing: what can be named, praised, or socially recognized isn’t the true underlying reality. Different phrasing, but the same structural idea.

New comment by roromainmain in "Is liberal democracy in terminal decline?"

roromainmain — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 15:24:24 +0000

I can’t access the article… but honestly, I’ve been asking myself the same question for the past ten years. The best answer I’ve found is: not yet — but the current backlash and drift toward authoritarianism in many democracies is actually the sign that something real is shifting. In a way, the situation looks weirdly similar to Europe before WWII. Democracies were starting to integrate some of the socialist ideas that had emerged in the 19th century, and the dominant forces of capitalism pushed back hard. They let fascists rise, sometimes even supported them. That led to a war, millions of deaths, and then a massive change of mindset: after WWII, every European country implemented strong social protection and regulation. Today, the shift is less about social security and more about cultural transformation — the end of patriarchy, and with it the decline of imperialism and Western dominance. Those foundations started being seriously questioned in the 60s. The dominant forces are resisting because, deep down, they’ve already lost — there’s no going back. But as always, they can still cause immense damage on the way out. And yes, if they refuse to let go peacefully, it could lead to conflict, and a lot of casualties. But after, democracy will make a come back. I may be too optimist.

New comment by roromainmain in "Universal Consciousness as Foundational Field"

roromainmain — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 10:29:25 +0000

Not able to challenge the model, but from a phenomelogical point of view,it makes sense

Universal Consciousness as Foundational Field

roromainmain — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 09:36:43 +0000

Article URL: https://pubs.aip.org/aip/adv/article/15/11/115319/3372193/Universal-consciousness-as-foundational-field-A

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46524384

Points: 2

# Comments: 1