> Or a chrome extension that takes HN comments and transforms them all to be kinder
I was about to start working on something like this. I would like to try browsing the internet for a day, where all comments that I read are rewritten after passing through a sentiment filter. If someone says something mean, I would pass the comment through an LLM with the prompt: "rewrite this comment as if you were a therapist, who was reframing the commenter's statement from the perspective that they are expressing personal pain, and are projecting it through their mean comment"
I find 19 times out of 20, that really mean comments come from a place of personal insecurity. So if someone says: "this chrome extension is a dumb idea, anti-free speech, blah blah blah" , I would read: "commentor wrote something mean. They might be upset about their own perceived insignificance in the world, and are projecting this pain through their comment <click here to reveal original text>"
Also on my project list - the AntiAssholeFilter. It's so interesting the ways you could handle this. Personally, I would want to just transform the comment into something that doesn't even mention that that the commenter wrote a mean comment - if it has something of value just make it not mean, otherwise hide it.
A couple things are really interesting about this idea. First - it's so easy for the end-user to customize a prompt that you don't need to get it right, you just need to give people the scaffolding and then they can color their internet bubble whatever color they want.
Second, I think that just making all comments just a couple percent more empathetic could be really impactful. It's the sort of systemic nudge that can ripple very far.
For the longest time I thought the zeta curve was some kind of sophisticated equation, but it is astonishingly simple. The "magic" of the zeta zeros only happens because of the 1/2 term in the exponent of the equation below. Any change with this fraction, and the zeros do not converge.
You start with a line segment. You then draw another line segment that starts at the end of the previous line segment, and whose length is shorter than the previous segment. The length of any segment is (1/n)^(1/2) where n is the number of the segment. These segments approach a limit (think of Zeno's paradox).
Finally, you bend each segment by an angle alpha. Technically this angle is in imaginary space, but the visual in Cartesian space just looks like a spiral, where each bend adds an angle, like a bull whip, so that the whole curve spirals back around (after creating other, mesmerizing sub-spirals). Amazingly, this curve always intersects zero (per Riemann Hypothesis). As I mentioned in my other comment, it's very useful to see this curve in 3D space.
A VR app called PianoVision has changed my musical life. People need to be open to breaking the boundaries and constraints of paper and rectangular screens, and go 3d and spatial with data display.
Reminds me of the NOAA-N Prime satellite that fell over, because there weren't enough bolts holding it to the test stand.
The roots cause, and someone correct me if this is not accurate, was that the x-ray tested bolts to hold it down were so expensive, that they had been "borrowed" to use on another project, and not returned, so that when the time came to flip the satellite into a horizontal position, it fell to the floor. Repairs cost $135M.
Disclosure: founder posting here