[HN Gopher] Show HN: Open-source real-time talk-to-AI wearable d...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: Open-source real-time talk-to-AI wearable device for few $
1. In the US, about 1/5 children are hospitalized each year that
don't have a caregiver. Caregiver such as play therapists and
parents' stress can also affect children's emotions. 2. Not
everyone is good at making friends and not everyone has a BFF to
talk to. Imagine you're having a hard time in life or at work, and
you can't tell your parents or friends. So, we built an open-
source project Starmoon and are using affordable hardware
components to bring AI characters to real-word objects like toys
and plushies to help people emotional growth. We believe this is a
complement tool and it is not intended to replace anyone. Please
leave any opinion.
Author : zq2240
Score : 70 points
Date : 2024-10-05 17:48 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| jstanley wrote:
| Personally I have found talking to AI to be much more draining
| than typing. It's a bit like having a phone call vs IM. I'd
| basically always prefer IM as long as I'm getting quick
| responses.
| zq2240 wrote:
| Yeah, I know your point. Compared with human communication, I
| think talk with AI can be self-paced.
| willsmith72 wrote:
| I still use text most of the time (technical or complex
| problems, copy pasting materials...), but for things like
| language learning or getting answers while commuting/walking,
| voice is a no-brainer.
| afro88 wrote:
| For the use case that this project is for?
| josephg wrote:
| Since the new OpenAI voice model launched, I feel the opposite.
| Some of the responses me and my gf have gotten from it were
| fantastic. It's really good at role play and using intonation
| now. And you can interrupt it halfway through a response if
| it's going off track.
|
| For example, I spent 20 minutes the other day talking through
| some software architecture decisions for a solo project. That
| was incredible. No way I would have typed out my thoughts as
| smoothly.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| I want to talk my input and read its output. Both are faster.
| danielbln wrote:
| Any plans for being able to run the entire thing locally with
| local models?
| _joel wrote:
| You can make an OpenAI compatible local server using
| LMStudio[1] and load any model you want. It'd have to be on
| another host though, the s3 has some inference capabilities
| with addons afair, but nowhere enough grunt to run locally at
| any usable token/s
|
| [1] https://lmstudio.ai/
| allears wrote:
| This tool requires a paid subscription, but it doesn't say how
| much. The hardware is affordable, but the monthly fees may not
| be. Also, the hardware is only useful as long as the company's
| servers are up and running -- better hope they don't go out of
| business, get sold, etc.
| joeyxiong wrote:
| Sorry for the confusion, we are still discussing the paid
| subscription pricing, but I can be sure that the price of
| premium subscription will not be higher than $9 per month.
| echoangle wrote:
| I don't want to criticize a cool project but why do people feel
| the need to create new hardware for AI things? It was the same
| thing with the rabbit r1. Why do I need a device that contains a
| screen, a microphone and a camera? I have that, it's called a
| smartphone. Being a bit smaller doesn't really help because I
| have my phone with me almost all the time anyways. So it's
| actually more annoying to carry the phone and the new device
| instead of just having the phone. I would be happy with it just
| being an app.
| explorigin wrote:
| I don't think you're their target audience. I'd love something
| like this for my kid (who isn't ready for a smartphone).
|
| Other problems are persistence. Have you looked at how hard it
| is to keep an app running in the background on an iPhone? on a
| Samsung phone? For an app that needs to be always-on, it's a
| non-starter unless you're Apple or Google respectively.
| suriya-ganesh wrote:
| I can answer to this, having worked on an assistant that is
| always on, from your phone.
|
| The platforms (ios, Android, etc.) are very limiting. It is
| hard to have something always on and listening. Especially
| apple is aggressive with apps running in the background.
|
| You need constant permissioning and special privileges. The
| exposed APIs themselves are not enough to build deep and stable
| integrations to the level of Siri/Google Assistant.
| echoangle wrote:
| Oh, I didn't get that it's supposed to always be listening.
| Maybe I'm not the target audience but I wouldn't want that
| anyways. If that's important, that might be a good reason. I
| think this needs to change in the future though if AI agents
| are supposed to become popular, I can't imagine buying
| separate hardware every time. Either the integration in the
| OS needs to become better or Google/Apple will monopolize the
| market and be the only options.
| jsheard wrote:
| > Oh, I didn't get that it's supposed to always be
| listening. Maybe I'm not the target audience but I wouldn't
| want that anyways.
|
| I don't know about this project, but generally when a voice
| assistant is "always listening" they mean it's sitting in a
| low power state listening for a very specific trigger like
| "Hey Siri" or "OK Google" and literally nothing else. As
| much as they would probably like to have it _really_
| listening all the time, the technology to have a portable
| device run actual speech recognition and parsing at all
| times with useful battery life doesn 't really exist yet.
| joeyxiong wrote:
| You are right, "always listening" they mean it's sitting
| in a low power state listening for a very specific
| trigger like "Hey Siri" or "OK Google" and literally
| nothing else.
| echoangle wrote:
| Yes, I thought it was button-triggered.
| fragmede wrote:
| Yes it does. A Nvidia Jetson Nano with a microphone
| running Whisper with a banana sized battery will give you
| 8 hours of transcription.
| xnx wrote:
| If you have a separate -dedicated- Android smartphone for
| this task, why wouldn't the app run in the foreground?
| moralestapia wrote:
| >why do people feel the need to create new hardware for AI
| things?
|
| Because people have agency and hobbies, and they're free to
| decide what to spend their money and time on.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Apple would stop you from scooping up all that delicious
| delicious data. Google probably would too. Always-on listening
| requires building e-waste.
| meiraleal wrote:
| We definitely need an alternative to the duopoly iOS/Android
| stavros wrote:
| I'd love a hardware device that streamed the audio to an HTTP
| endpoint of my choosing, and played back whatever audio I sent. I
| can handle the rest myself, but the hardware side is tricky.
| butterfly42069 wrote:
| I think this is great, ignore the people comparing your project
| to the commercial Rabbit R1 project, those people are comparing
| apples and oranges.
|
| A lot of the subscription based pull ins could be replaced by
| networking into a machine running whisper/ollama etc anyway.
|
| Keep up the great work I say :)
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| > In the US, about 1/5 children are hospitalized each year that
| don't have a caregiver. Caregiver such as play therapists and
| parents' stress can also affect children's emotions.
|
| Trust me, large language models are not anywhere close to being
| able to substitute as an effective parent, therapist, or
| caregiver. In fact, I'd wager any attempts to do so would have
| mostly _negative_ effects.
|
| I would implore you to reconsider this as a legitimate use case
| for your open device.
|
| > We believe this is a complement tool and it is not intended to
| replace anyone.
|
| Well which is it? Both issues you list heavily imply that your
| tool will serve as a de facto replacement. But then you finish by
| saying you don't intend to do that. So what aspects of the
| problems you listed will be solved as a simple "complement tool"?
| zq2240 wrote:
| Like in pederatic care, not every child has a parent who takes
| good care of them. In hospitals, it is more often play
| therapists who do this work, but their negative stress can also
| affect children's emotions. For example, some children feel
| very traumatized before doing line placement/blood test. This
| tool can help explain the specific process to them using
| empathic language and encourage them on specific topics.
|
| I mean doctors and play therapists still have to do their job,
| We have interviewed some doctors who feel particularly
| frustrated about how to comfort children before tests or
| surgeries. They hope for a tool can help building comfort for
| kids -> which means time is faster to run tests.
| fragmede wrote:
| > Trust me, large language models are not anywhere close to
| being able to substitute as an effective parent, therapist, or
| caregiver.
|
| You're asking us to trust you, but why should we trust you in
| this matter? Regardless of if I think ChatGPT is any good at
| those things, you'd need some supporting evidence for that one
| way or another before continuing.
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| It's an expression. In this context I just meant "it should
| be obvious". Maybe try steel-manning my argument first. If
| you really can't see why that's likely the case after using a
| LLM yourself, then I'll be happy to admit that I'm making an
| emotional argument and you're in no way required to "trust
| me".
| eddd-ddde wrote:
| Honestly I don't see it as an "obvious" thing.
|
| I won't be surprised if in a couple more years this kind if
| thing is the norm. I don't think there's anything
| inherently different from a person that listens to you.
| tempodox wrote:
| I'm at a loss for words. If you really think there's no
| difference between a human and a machine, I don't know
| what to tell you.
| ben_w wrote:
| It wasn't obvious for a long time, but the closest we
| have to a relevant experiment* shows that physical
| contact is also necessary for parenting, especially soft
| contact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow
|
| Humanoid robots are improving, so I won't say "never",
| but I will say "not yet". Not in isolation at least.
|
| * and likely the closest we ever will, because it was
| disturbing enough to a big influence on animal welfare
| movement
| fragmede wrote:
| https://chatgpt.com/share/6701aab3-2138-8009-b6b8-ec345b438
| 2...
|
| Why is that "not anywhere close to being able to substitute
| as an effective parent, therapist, or caregiver."?
|
| Maybe I've had a bad parents/therapists/caregivers all my
| life, but it seems like an entirely reasonable response. If
| there's a more specific scenario you'd like me to pose and
| show me that it's advice is no good, I'm happy to ask it.
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| I gladly admit that I was making an appeal to emotional
| intelligence and you won't likely agree with me no matter
| what back and forth we go through.
| szundi wrote:
| I had a quite good social sciences teacher.
|
| I never forget one of his remarks: There can be only one thing
| that is worse than someone not having a mother - that he has
| one.
|
| So maybe a chatty LLM is not the worse thing that can happen
| with someone.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >I would implore you to reconsider this as a legitimate use
| case for your open device.
|
| OP, I would implore you to not listen to any of this "advice"
| at all and just keep on building really nice things.
|
| I can already think of a dozen valuable applications of it in a
| therapheutic context.
|
| Ignore those who don't "do".
| brailsafe wrote:
| > Ignore those who don't "do".
|
| I'm actually pretty ok with ignoring those who don't "think"
| before they "do", not that the OP is one of those people, but
| "doing" as a mark of virtue seems fairly likely destructive
| zq2240 wrote:
| Thank you for all your advice.
| moralestapia wrote:
| One day of doing is worth a billion years of thinking.
|
| The world is material, not imaginary.
| Intralexical wrote:
| > In fact, I'd wager any attempts to do so would have mostly
| _negative_ effects.
|
| It does kinda send an interesting message to a child, doesn't
| it? "You're not worth the time of anybody human, so here's a
| machine instead."
|
| And that's before the chat even starts (and eventually goes off
| the rails).
| vunderba wrote:
| I predicted a Teddy Ruxpin / AG Talking Bear driven by LLMs a
| while ago. My biggest fear is that the Christmas toy of the year
| would be a mass produced always listening device that's
| effectively constantly surveilling and learning about your child,
| courtesy of Hasbro.
| deanputney wrote:
| Is this specific hardware necessary? If I wanted to run this on a
| Raspberry Pi zero, for example, is that possible?
| zq2240 wrote:
| Sorry, it currently support esp32-devkit and Seeed Studio Xiao
| ESP32S3. For the Raspberry Pi Zero, you may need to switch to a
| different PlatformIO environment and replace the corresponding
| GPIO pins.
| napoleongl wrote:
| I can see something like this being used in various inspection
| scenarios. Instead of an inspectior having to fill out a template
| or fiddle with an ipad-thingie in tight situations they can talk
| to this, and a LLM converts it to structured data according to a
| template.
| aithrowawaycomm wrote:
| This seems to be yet another reckless and dishonest scam from yet
| another cohort of AI con artists. From starmoon.app:
|
| > With a platform that supports real-time conversations safe for
| all ages...Our AI platform can analyse human-speech and emotion,
| and respond with empathy, offering supportive conversations and
| personalized learning assistance.
|
| These claims are certainly false. It is not acceptable for AI
| hucksters to lie about their product in order to make a quick
| buck, regardless of how many nice words they say about emotional
| growth.
|
| Do you have a single psychologist on your staff that signed off
| on any of this? Telling lies about commercial products will get
| you in trouble with regulators, and it truly seems like you
| deserve to get in trouble.
| arendtio wrote:
| Can you please elaborate on why this is 'certainly false'? What
| is missing?
|
| To me, it looks like you have some experience with the topic
| and believe that it is very hard to build something like the
| device in question, but which properties of the solution make
| you so certain?
| aithrowawaycomm wrote:
| The primary thing that's missing is any evidence that the
| claim is true, or even plausible. There's no indication that
| they even tested this with kids.
|
| I don't take advertising at face value, even if that
| advertising might appeal to sci-fi sensibilities. Your
| question has an air of "well you can't PROVE the flying
| spaghetti monster is false."
| akadeb wrote:
| hey there I am one of the founders. this is our project which
| we are trying to grow through open-source. I agree our wording
| can be better so its backed by data and not just a marketing
| stint.
|
| > Do you have a single psychologist on your staff that signed
| off on any of this?
|
| We've been talking to pediatricians at portland hospital and
| cromwell hospital in london to support the "safe for all ages"
| claim but I agree that we want to back all our claims with data
| meiraleal wrote:
| These claims are certainly not false. They described ChatGPT.
|
| > It is not acceptable for AI hucksters to lie about their
| product in order to make a quick buck
|
| You created a fake/throwaway just to make posts with this kind
| of cheap insults?
| gcanyon wrote:
| I was a solo latchkey kid from age... 5 or 6 maybe? I developed a
| love of reading and spent basically all my waking hours that
| weren't forcibly in the company of others doing that, by myself:
| summertime in San Diego, teenage me read 2-4 books a day. I grew
| up to be incredibly introverted (ironic that I work as a product
| manager, which _strongly_ favors extroverts) and I wonder how
| differently I might have turned out if a digital companion had
| urged me to be more social (something my parents _never_ did), or
| just interacted with me on a regular basis.
| pocketarc wrote:
| In the 2001 movie AI, the protagonist children play with an "old"
| robotic teddy bear named "Teddy".
|
| The bear's movement isn't great, and its voice sounds robotic.
| Projects like this make me think that Teddy either could be built
| with today's tech, or is very close to being buildable.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-10-05 23:00 UTC)