[ncantelmo]

Problem: The process of getting thoughts from your head into an organized, written draft form isn't as fast or accessible as it could be.

Project: I'm building a conversational UI / bot (https://writing.ai) that helps people write faster. The basic idea is that it asks you a series of questions about a topic, asks follow-up questions for more detail as needed, and when it's done outputs a completed draft. You're still providing the content, but the system understands the structure of completed documents and knows what questions to ask to get the actual writing done more easily.

I just quit my job and started working on this full time last week, so no public version yet, but signups are very welcome.

[drusepth]

This is a really interesting project. I just signed up to get notified of launch (andrew @ indentlabs.com) but if you want to shoot me an email with what you're working on and where you're at, perhaps I could help out or give you some feedback on the idea/implementation.

Either way, always good to have more eyes occasionally. :)

[ncantelmo]

Thanks, sent you an email!

[mhdempsey]

Echoing same sentiments as drusepth - would love to provide feedback and test things out if helpful (michael (at) michaeldempsey(dot)me

[ncantelmo]

Thanks Michael, just sent you a note!

[vladfr]

This is super awesome! I soo need this. Drafting with a structure is a part I often skip when trying to write something, which is why writing has become quite hard. I should stop doing it. But your idea is great, looking forward to seeing it in action!

[m-j-fox]

Cool. I need a conversational AI to help me make good decisions about my to do list.

Orgbot: I'm sorry Dave, you won't have the energy for 3 meetings and a Meetup on Monday. Let's spread the meetings throughout the week and find something you can do in your pajamas while hung-over.

[GrinningFool]

This looks really intriguing, I look forward to seeing where you go with it.

[ncantelmo]

Appreciate it! I'm looking forward to it too, at this point.

[roseburg]

I also find this fascinating. I just signed [e-mail] I also have another use case I'd like to bounce off you if you could shoot me an email. Thanks!

[ncantelmo]

Email sent, happy to hear about your use case!

[loxias]

What a cool idea! Writing is my least favorite part of development, just sent an email (loxias AT mit DOT edu), can't wait to try it out.

[ncantelmo]

Thank you for the kind words!

[maximg68]

Sounds very promising, I can think of some professional applications in software development. Signed up.

[ncantelmo]

Thanks, and happy to hear about any applications you have in mind! Feel free to email [e-mail] if you'd like to discuss.

[aswerty]

Sounds interesting. Is it more for creative writing or more business oriented?

I'm signed up in any case.

[ncantelmo]

Thanks for the signup!

My initial target is short-form content such as blog posts and essays. I'm going to wait to see how that goes to decide what to focus on next, but odds are that it'll be more structured content like academic papers or technical reports.

I'm definitely not ruling out an eventual focus on creative writing, but it'll take a bit for the system to get to that stage.

That said, I'm designing it with the ability to ingest annotated writing samples of any sort, so it's possible that a wider range of writing types will be supported sooner than expected.

[e12e]

Looks very interesting. I guess I might be fighting a loosing battle here - but any plans for an offline solution? This is the kind of thing that I'd probably love to use on the train (many tunnels, no 4g/spotty in-train wireless) - and on flights (wifi is comming, but not always) -- or other places without good network coverage (composing a blog post on a hike..).

[ncantelmo]

Yeah, I understand, it's a completely valid use case. I'm personally much more productive when I'm completely disconnected, so I really identify with the request.

I had, in the past, also been thinking a bit about how the system could work offline because it would avoid a lot of security issues for something like a medical office that wants to create content that's then copied into a medical records system.

My initial thought was to bundle a local copy of the server with pre-trained models, but that becomes problematic on mobile clients. I'm writing the server in Go, so if I go that route I'd probably need to reimplement parts of it in another language and avoid using any remote APIs.

So the answer is: very likely yes, but not initially. You've definitely moved the functionality up my planned features list.

[e12e]

A self-contained binary would work fine for me (If it could run on a Surface Pro 4 - or as a VM image - eg. hyper-v and/or virtual box).

I always prefer a Free software/open source solution - but I'm not sure how you'd monetize that. Maybe charge for the app (ios/android) - and provide a free/open self-host server solution, along with a subscription service and a web client? (The payment for the app would also grant access to the subscription, and for those that didn't want to self-host/wanted to support the project could pay for the subscription and use the web SaaS solution?).

[ncantelmo]

The plan is to offer a subscription service even if there's an offline component. For a bunch of reasons, it's the best approach for a one-person venture trying to get off the ground.

I've been an OSS user and supporter for a long time. I don't think I'll be open sourcing the core system anytime soon, but I'm very likely to release any useful NLP or ML-related libraries that are created as part of this project. Not sure what those will be or when they'll be ready, but I do have a mind to give back to the OSS community.

[kermittd]

I just signed up and am awaiting launch!️️[e-mail]

[ncantelmo]

Thank you! I'll keep working to get it launched ASAP. The response from HN today has been extremely encouraging.