[HN Gopher] Limitless: Personalized AI powered by what you've se...
___________________________________________________________________
Limitless: Personalized AI powered by what you've seen, said, and
heard
Author : nihaals
Score : 89 points
Date : 2024-04-15 13:04 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.limitless.ai)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.limitless.ai)
| georgehill wrote:
| Any data privacy experts here? Could someone explain how data
| encryption and decryption work here?
|
| https://www.limitless.ai/#privacy
| nihaals wrote:
| They don't really give any specifics and I'm not sure if they
| give you the keys or explain how the keys are derived (which I
| assume must be based on your login if they don't make you enter
| it otherwise they must be able to decrypt it whenever they
| want) but they mention they worked with Latacora[1]. Also
| curious if anyone else has any ideas on how they prevent
| themselves from being able to decrypt user data while implying
| they're not using E2EE[1].
|
| [1]: https://help.limitless.ai/en/articles/9130680-privacy-
| with-l...
|
| Edit: I just tried it. They don't give you encryption keys you
| need to enter when signing in and the server literally sends
| you your transcripts with no encryption. _Maybe_ they 're
| including a key somehow derived when signing in with Google/a
| magic link in the request, but I don't think anything would
| stop them from just logging API responses even if that was the
| case. They're definitely not using E2EE. They might just be
| encrypting at rest and storing their keys in AWS KMS which
| sounds like false advertising.
| georgehill wrote:
| I was going to buy it, but this lack of privacy explanation
| scares me.
| nihaals wrote:
| Just added some additional context from trying it which
| might make you glad you checked.
| georgehill wrote:
| Thanks!
| Oras wrote:
| It would be impossible to do E2E encryption unless the
| transcription happens on the device (I assume you mean the
| wearable).
|
| Even with that, you will only access the transcript and still
| need an AI model to get meaningful info.
|
| This device wouldn't be suitable for anyone with little
| privacy concerns.
| dsiroker wrote:
| Confidential Cloud is similar to end-to-end encryption, but
| with the added benefit of letting your personalized AI work for
| you even when you aren't using the app.
|
| _You control who can decrypt your data_
|
| Your employer, we as software providers, and the government
| cannot decrypt your data without your permission, even with a
| subpoena to do so.
|
| _Your data is anonymized_
|
| There is an initial mapping from your application request to an
| anonymous ID, but after that, even we don't know whose
| encrypted data is whose.
|
| _Your data will never be sold_
|
| Not only do we pledge never to sell your data, but we couldn't
| even if we wanted to because we can't decrypt it without your
| permission.
|
| _Envelope encryption with unique secret keys_
|
| Data keys are used to encrypt your data and are themselves
| encrypted under a secret key. No one, including us, can export
| the secret keys.
|
| _Tamperproof hardware_
|
| Decrypted data is only ever stored in memory (source:
| <https://docs.aws.amazon.com/kms/latest/cryptographic-
| details...>), which is protected from tampering by a multi-chip
| standalone hardware cryptographic appliance (source:
| <https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/cryptographic-module-
| validati...>).
|
| _Protected from 3rd party AI providers_
|
| Data sent to 3rd party AI providers for transcription and
| summarization is anonymized, not used for training, and deleted
| after 30 days.
|
| _Protected from cloud provider and subpoena_
|
| AWS KMS (source: <https://aws.amazon.com/kms/>) uses FIPS 140-2
| (source:
| <https://csrc.nist.gov/CSRC/media/projects/cryptographic-
| modu...>) validated hardware security modules (HSMs) to ensure
| no one, including AWS employees, can retrieve your plaintext
| KMS keys.
| ooterness wrote:
| Sorry, but what? How do you do any of the AI training or
| inference without decrypting the data in the cloud? I
| seriously doubt it's all running locally on the pendant.
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| There is no way to anonymize transcripts where I and others
| refer to me by name and reference uniquely identifiable
| information. What happens when the AI provider is served with
| a warrant or subpoena for transcripts mentioning MacsHeadroom
| in the 30 day window?
|
| Your "anonymization" does nothing. You have major egg on your
| face right now.
|
| The only remotely anonymous version of a service like this
| involves a private LLM endpoint.
|
| I have Mixtral 8x22B and CommandR+ running on my home LLM
| sever. How can I use Limitless without handing my
| "anonymized" (but NOT actually anonymized in any way shape or
| form) PII over to a third party who retains it for at least
| 30 days (or longer if someone with a badge or gavel asks)?
| nihaals wrote:
| Limitless is encrypting at rest, not using end-to-end
| encryption.
|
| E2EE suggests that only the user (or at least only people the
| user knows about in the case of e.g. group chats) is able to
| see/access the decrypted data, which is false. Limitless does
| not decrypt data on the client using a key only the user has
| access to, it decrypts the data on the server (in this case
| using AWS KMS) and sends it to the client. Even if we remove
| just decrypting everyone's data out of the equation using AWS
| KMS (since the user does not control the key), you could
| trivially write a Cloudflare Worker (since you use Cloudflare
| on your API subdomain) that simply sends the (unencrypted)
| API response along with the email from the Supabase JWT used
| in the header to a server that accumulates everyone's
| recording names, transcripts, generated notes and generated
| summaries. If someone gained access to your Cloudflare
| account they could also do this. You're advertising Limitless
| as if you aren't able to see people's transcripts even if you
| wanted to, which is false. Even your employer can if they TLS
| MitM you with their own TLS certificates, which is not rare.
| On the other hand, Signal cannot see your data unless they
| modify client code, nor can your employer unless they install
| a modified Signal client on your device or install spyware on
| your device, which is reading decrypted data from memory.
| This is what separates encrypting at rest and E2EE (which you
| say your solution is just as secure as and is better than)
| for the end user and it feels like false advertising.
| Limitless, your employer and a potential hacker can all read
| your data, at the minimum while you're using Limitless.
| bigfudge wrote:
| I really wish someone would make a pendant like this which is
| focussed on local-only use. It could connect to a mobile app or
| computer for transcription and summarisation, but using local
| models or an API key that the use chooses. I would pay serious
| money for a device high quality that did this (>$500) if it was
| backed by open-source platform/infrastructure for processing the
| managing the audio. Even better if it was written as an extension
| or fork of something like obsidian, or if the data structures
| were fairly open and there was an API for querying the data in
| interesting ways.
|
| Recording and processing audio locally is something I already do.
| But there's absolutely no way I'm EVER going to trust a startup
| with this sort of data, any anyone in any serious job would
| almost certainly be unable to use it for work.
|
| I guess the risk is that someone would sell a crappy pendant that
| uses the same software, but I still think there's a potential
| niche here for people who want something that just works.
|
| I'd also purchase the software from the App Store if it was
| otherwise only available as a non-signed binary.
| flax wrote:
| Yes, a local-only always-on recorder/transcriber would be a
| killer product. Combine with a local LLM for summarization, and
| a simple search engine. But there's no way in hell I'm paying a
| subscription for this, or letting some 3rd party have this
| data.
|
| It doesn't seem like this should actually be that difficult to
| build an open-source version of, modulo battery-life concerns.
| beaugunderson wrote:
| > Yes, a local-only always-on recorder/transcriber would be a
| killer product.
|
| That's exactly what this was (Rewind) before they renamed the
| company and pivoted to AI.
| ametrau wrote:
| I have been wanting this since I first used whisper and saw
| it's capability. Nothing you can buy off the shelf is
| sufficient at the moment and if you diy it'll be too big.
| bigfudge wrote:
| I actually pitched this idea as a project for students on an
| MSc EE course a friend runs. Sadly none of the students
| picked it but we looked at it in some detail and it's so
| simple that even the dev boards +battery + mic array could
| have been made pretty small (according to him anyway). I
| really hope someone with the hardware chops fancies
| scratching the itch!
| fictorial wrote:
| Me too! I came across this recently:
| https://github.com/OwlAIProject/Owl
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39441654
| eikowagenknecht wrote:
| Seems to be hugged to death currently:
|
| ,,Sorry! Our app is melting due to overwhelming load Error
| fetching: TypeError: Load failed"
| PStamatiou wrote:
| Thanks - we've resolved this. There was a small window where we
| were auto-scaling up.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| It sounds like this is killing/replacing Rewind
| Jonovono wrote:
| He said it's what they will be focusing on, but that they will
| continue to support Rewind
| nihaals wrote:
| Since the start of February, Rewind seems to have had 3 PRs
| merged for macOS (they auto deploy on new commits to main for
| both iOS TestFlight and macOS) and it's had known bugs that
| have been around for months so I'm not holding my breath.
| Hopefully it's at least updated for new macOS releases but
| I'm expecting an announcement in the future saying it won't
| be supported anymore or it just not getting any updates for a
| year.
| dsiroker wrote:
| We wouldn't be where we are today without our existing
| customers, so all Rewind Pro subscribers get Limitless Pro for
| free.
|
| We are shifting our focus to Limitless because we think it's a
| better approach to solving the same problems. In fact, we plan
| to implement many of your favorite Rewind features directly in
| Limitless.
|
| We are so bullish on Limitless that we decided to change our
| company name from Rewind to Limitless.
|
| That said, we have no plans to stop supporting Rewind.
|
| You can even use both products side-by-side and decide for
| yourself which one you like better.
| aw123 wrote:
| So Rewind will be the local version and Limitless will be the
| cloud version? Will Rewind still be coming to windows?
| htrp wrote:
| TLDR:
|
| The company formerly known as rewind ai
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33421751) is going all-in
| on wearable devices up-to and including a label mic/pendant that
| will plug into a ton of AI services
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37744213).
|
| As a result, they're changing their name to limitless and also
| moving a ton of stuff off device and into the cloud.
| NetOpWibby wrote:
| Oh! Thanks for the info. This felt like the same people.
| cududa wrote:
| Device design reminds me of the Misfit Wearables health tracker.
| Loved that little thing.
| eh9 wrote:
| i haven't personally used the AI pin, but based on reviews, it
| doesn't feel like these devices are going to feel productive
| until a much higher % of queries is answered on-device (without
| going to the cloud).
|
| MKBHD asked his pin what he was looking at, and in the time
| humane's pin to take a pic, send it up to the cloud, decide what
| model is most appropriate, and narrate a really long (possibly
| hallucinatory) answer; he simply took his phone out and google
| lens answered correctly with a lot of time to spare.
|
| I know these are first-gen products and the fact that this one
| would presumably have a much higher degree of context on my
| personal life might make this better (without speaking to privacy
| implications). Still, over-reliance on the cloud and the fact
| that this doesn't interface with my phone (where most reminders,
| alarms, messages, etc, happen) is going to make these devices a
| tough sell.
| silverlake wrote:
| You're talking about the humane ai pin. That's different.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| As is the case with just about all tech service offerings these
| days, whether they charge you or not, my first question is: How
| much of the info it extracts from me to provide me with this
| service is it going to hoard and then resell to others for the
| sake of "improving user experience" or some other bullshit
| justification for extracting more money.
|
| The ugly thing is that this vast privacy invasion and resell has
| become so pervasively normalized that even the fucking services
| which you pay for almost universally sell off to others ad
| nauseam anything about you that isn't nailed down.
|
| Since this thing offers to give you personalized AI based on
| everything you see and do in your day, that's some very private,
| juicy info to resell.
| primitivesuave wrote:
| They do make some effort to push the "confidential cloud"
| aspect of their product, where the AI is supposed to somehow
| operate on your encrypted data, but these days I only believe
| it when I see the white paper. It is unfortunately quite common
| in our industry is to posture as more security-conscious and
| privacy-focused than you actually are.
| delusional wrote:
| And for some reason that's not illegal
| janalsncm wrote:
| I'm gonna doubt they're operating AI on encrypted cloud data.
| In other words, there's no technical reason they couldn't be
| listening to your conversations.
|
| If these guys have accomplished homomorphic encryption they
| shouldn't be building a wearable, they should be licensing
| their IP to Apple.
| mattsan wrote:
| They're definitely marketing this as if they were Apple. If
| this takes off I'm betting on Apple buying them out.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Every rumor points at Apple announcing OS integration of
| local LLM assistant stuff at WWDC in June, with
| specialized chips to go with it. I suspect they're going
| to Sherlock a lot of small "AI" companies simultaneously.
| ooterness wrote:
| It's encrypted, but they have the keys. Wouldn't want
| anyone else to access the data without paying the toll,
| after all.
| janalsncm wrote:
| There's three options:
|
| 1. The data is encrypted and they can't operate on it in
| the cloud. 2. The data is not encrypted. 3. The data is
| encrypted and they have built a state of the art
| homomorphic encryption algorithm for their AI to operate
| on.
|
| I'm going to guess it's #1, not #3.
| crooked-v wrote:
| It's all sent to OpenAI for the LLM processing, so you'd
| better make sure you're happy with them getting text
| transcripts of everything that ever shows up on your computer
| screen.
| nihaals wrote:
| When I saw them compare it to E2EE, since that's at least a
| specific thing that can't really be misinterpreted, I thought
| they were serious, but turns out it's not at all[1] and they
| are advertising themselves as being far more private and
| secure than they actually are. Considering their investor
| list[2], maybe this is more common than we realise?
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40044348
|
| [2]: https://www.rewind.ai/about#:~:text=Our%20investors
| ActionHank wrote:
| Can't wait for the enterprise version which will take notes on
| what I do all day and then send them off to my boss.
| beaugunderson wrote:
| Especially disappointing given that before they renamed the
| company they were built on the idea that everything was stored
| locally. Seems like a pivot solely to gain from the AI hype
| cycle.
| jrpt wrote:
| The CEO said on Twitter: "In fact, we built Confidential Cloud
| in such a way that only you can decrypt your data. Your
| employer, we as software providers, and the government cannot
| decrypt your data without your permission, even with a subpoena
| to do so."
|
| So I think a monthly subscription is the business model, not
| ads.
| nihaals wrote:
| I do think they're unlikely to sell user data, but it's
| important to note that their privacy claims aren't true and
| it would be possible for them to[1].
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40044348
| janalsncm wrote:
| This side steps the question though. Transcription isn't
| happening on the device, which means your raw audio is sent
| off to someone else's computer. Whether or not it is finally
| stored in some secure manner is irrelevant at that point.
| binary132 wrote:
| It practically reads as satire it's so on the nose.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| Perhaps "limitless" refers to what they are allowed to do with
| the data/information they collect.
|
| NB. Data/information can be transferred to other entities in
| ways that not meet the definition of "resell".1
|
| In addition to transfer, there must be limits on _use_.
| Obviously a "restriction" like, "The company shall be limited
| to using the data to improve the service" is meaningless.
| Defeating privacy improves the service.
|
| 1. Years ago, when Facebook was responding to the media with
| the line, "We do not sell your data", they were sharing it for
| free. Not to mention leaking it. https://themarkup.org/the-
| breakdown/2021/09/02/what-does-it-...
| dsiroker wrote:
| (I'm the co-founder & CEO of Limitless)
|
| We are so honored this hit the front page of HN!
|
| Here's the video announcement:
| https://twitter.com/dsiroker/status/1779857843895599383
|
| And timestamps to moments in the video you might be interested
| in:
|
| 0:06 Reveal
|
| 0:48 Why Limitless?
|
| 1:39 Demo
|
| 3:05 Pendant
|
| 4:27 Privacy
|
| 5:23 Confidential Cloud
|
| 6:36 Rewind
|
| 7:12 Roadmap
|
| 9:25 Vision
| Delumine wrote:
| I pre-ordered the rewind, and noticed that I'll be upgraded for
| free! But my question is for the subscription, will there be
| any discounts for the pro plan?
|
| Also, I do notice that the free version has 10 free hours a
| month of AI features.
|
| How easy would it be for me to export the recordings, and use
| it with say Google Gemini Pro for transcribing?
| janalsncm wrote:
| What is the purpose of an additional device with a microphone?
| Presumably all of your users already own a smartphone, which
| already has a microphone.
|
| If Limitless gets PMF, anyone who puts Whisper into an iPhone
| app will do what you're doing basically for free.
| dsiroker wrote:
| Hardware is hard. We would have happily done this as a native
| iPhone or Watch app if it were possible. We explored that
| first. But, unfortunately both iOS and watchOS don't support
| it. In particular, anytime you listen to audio (a YouTube
| video, phone call, etc) it turns off the microphone and you
| have to remember to turn it back on.
| pmx wrote:
| Do you plan to add support for microsoft calendars and email? I
| have gmail but none of my work stuff is in there so I can't
| really make great use of this :(
| kiliankoe wrote:
| I hate how people keep pretending that only Google does
| calendar and mail. These things have been standardized for
| decades for a reason.
| lostmsu wrote:
| What's the summary for vision? Is there going to be a device?
| matzf wrote:
| Sounds just like an episode of Black Mirror. About as creepy as
| it gets these days.
| ravetcofx wrote:
| A few more years and there will be an always recording pin on
| camera too! Who needs privacy
| vezycash wrote:
| A pro feature - uploading your own audio
| PStamatiou wrote:
| (Co-founder of Limitless here)
|
| For any designers / front-end folks here, I wrote a thread going
| over some of the design details on our new homepage:
| https://twitter.com/Stammy/status/1779860940541808935
| littlestymaar wrote:
| You should consider a blog post on your website, in addition to
| a post on a closed social media where most people can't read
| threads anymore.
| PStamatiou wrote:
| Yea definitely, have been thinking about something more in-
| depth where i dive into how i created them too.
| cakeface wrote:
| Aren't there wiretapping laws that make recording conversations
| in certain situations illegal? I love the idea of this type of
| technology but it seems tricky to deploy from a moral and legal
| perspective.
| dsiroker wrote:
| That's why we are going to offer Consent Mode.
|
| Consent Mode makes it possible for the first time ever to only
| capture the voice of people who have given consent to be
| recorded.
|
| It uses voice identification to determine who is speaking and
| verbal opt-in to make it frictionless to ask for consent.
|
| Here's a direct link to the timestamp of the announcement where
| we show how Consent Mode works:
| https://twitter.com/dsiroker/status/1779857843895599383?t=26...
| corytheboyd wrote:
| So you record people without consent and pinky swear that
| your software will "unrecord" after the fact? I don't know if
| you can just hand wave that away... ship has probably sailed
| on anyone enforcing these kinds of laws I guess, good luck
| crooked-v wrote:
| Yeah, that seems like exactly the sort of shenanigans that
| would get certain kinds of judges extremely unhappy.
| refulgentis wrote:
| It's likely more nuanced than that.
|
| I'm reminded of how I felt it was unfair that the hotword
| detector for assistants was discussed as "recording", but
| it's really just parsing a byte stream, never storing it.
|
| Voice ID systems I'm familiar with work on a similar
| premise.
| refulgentis wrote:
| I've previously worked on the Google Assistant from several
| angles, and this demo'd awesome, and I was _very_ surprised.
| Then I saw it is listed as "soon" on the roadmap. Then I
| remembered the demo was very much a video, not a demo.
|
| I might be jaded from years of bigco, and I'm rooting for
| you, hopefully you're already set enough financially you can
| ignore this, innovate, and already have teams of people
| demo'ing a solution internally:
|
| As a company, you can't get trust back. Fudging a bit and
| projecting what you'll have when you ship is _very_ tempting
| when the competition is this thick. Having this much
| competition also implies there will be choice, and given the
| use case, it 's likely people will always opt for choices
| that appear more trustworthy.
|
| On a completely separate note, I've seen many, many, teams of
| extremely bright people be funded for 2-4 years on things
| that you'd think "it can't be that hard..." and it turns out
| it's impossible. Not this specifically, but voice adjacent
| stuff.
|
| Again, rooting for you, but a forthright version of me would
| have just said it'll never work as demo'd, and it's worth
| considering what impact it'll have long-term on your success
| if even just 20% of whats on the roadmap doesn't work out,
| you're already talking about it in present tense, and it's
| absolutely key to your user trust story. 20% is conservative
| in my experience.
| jackpirate wrote:
| You're wording in this comment (and the twitter/comment
| video) gives off the same vibes as the google april 1st
| videos for things like gmail motion (https://www.youtube.com/
| playlist?list=PLAD8wFTLnQKeDsINWn8Wj...). I honestly thought
| this was full sarcasm at first.
| tky wrote:
| I'm sure you've considered how the BIPA law in Illinois
| applies since it's one of (if not the) strongest biometrics
| privacy laws in the U.S. Could you share some detail on how
| you store and process unknown voices before consent?
|
| For context, this is BIPA: https://law.justia.com/codes/illin
| ois/chapter-740/act-740-il... and it's why Facebook, Google,
| and others have sent fairly large settlement checks to
| Illinois residents over the last few years.
| bsenftner wrote:
| Google Glass for Audio. Nope.
| FL410 wrote:
| Big fan of Rewind (despite the impact on battery life!). My
| favorite part of it is that everything is verifiably local. I'll
| take an inferior AI model to shipping _recordings of everything I
| see /hear_ to someone else.
|
| Hard pass on Limitless. I don't care how good the encryption is,
| sending this kind of thing to anyone's cloud is a nope for me.
| crooked-v wrote:
| > everything is verifiably local
|
| It's not. If you use the meeting summarization or querying
| features, the text transcripts are sent to OpenAI for LLM
| processing.
| NetOpWibby wrote:
| This looks incredible. Site looks fantastic. In a perfect world,
| I'd pre-order immediately.
|
| I sure as hell am NOT subjecting friends and family to being
| recorded and having those recordings going to some cloud I don't
| control.
|
| Just this morning I got an email from AT&T about how they regret
| that my data was leaked but it's not so bad, sign up for this
| monitoring service. I have no choice but to use certain services.
| I can choose not to engage with this beautiful product.
| janice1999 wrote:
| It's not clear from your website who you are and where you are
| based. Given that you want so much personal data, it might be
| better to put that up front and center to gain some trust.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| This sounds like a great way to collect all my information and
| then create an endless stream of bullshit out of it. The
| enshittification continues.
| pebblesun wrote:
| Given how new this product is, shouldn't trailer focus on what it
| does and how to use it in daily lives, rather than showing off
| different colors and finish of the product? With iPhones, Pixels,
| I can understand this focus. No one needs to explain what they
| do. Not this one. This the first time I am hearing/seeingyou. So,
| show me what you can do. Not what colors or material you're made
| with.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| Here is where they bought the domain name:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230426201730if_/http://limitle...
| Imnimo wrote:
| I watched the demo video, and I'm not sure I understand what
| "seen" means in the title. Is there a camera on this?
| throwaway888abc wrote:
| 1984 by accidental convenience
| dedalus wrote:
| This is Vannevar Bush's Memex in action using the cloud
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