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“How do we scale that feeling that someone got a personal handwritten note” is really dystopian.

spicybright 4y ago
Very reminiscent of the movie Her, where the main character worked at a letter writing service you could pay someone to write thoughtful letters to family and friends.
- cm_silva 4y ago
  In Japan you can rent a family. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rental_family_service https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rental_family_service
  - landemva 4y ago
    In Nevada you can rent a girlfriend experience. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/sex-work-brothel-girlfriend-experience-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-985314/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/sex-wo...
    - enraged_camel 4y ago
      I think that has been a thing in Japan for a long time!
    - kyleee 4y ago
      surely not just in nevada?
lotsofpulp 4y ago
I would have preferred a video FaceTime call from the business owner or one of the partners anyway.
- flanbiscuit 4y ago
  Let's see, we already have deep faked audio that can be trained to sound like anyone, deep faked video, and chat bots that can be trained to talk/write like anyone, so scaling this to millions of customers is not far off
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Once that happens, I will prefer a home visit and maybe a non soup meal.
  - gregsadetsky 4y ago
    It already exists. I won’t link to anyone, but I just found a site claiming to be a “personalization platform for automated 1:1 video messaging” They specifically show that their videos will use text to speech to personalize the “Hi $firstname” greeting at the top of the video. Dystopian, like many people here are saying.
MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
Alternatively, "a scalable way to bring a little bit of joy to many people" is actually nice & good.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  In the short term. In the long term, “a way to reduce trust in society”. It is why I assume everything on social media is staged.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    You should assume zero trust in anything you see at this point, in case that was not already obvious.
- hnbad 4y ago
  It's not "bringing joy", it's emotional manipulation. Intent matters. This isn't any better than MLM people pretending to be your friend in order to sell you tupperware. In a single naive interaction, sure, it may bring joy. But repeated at scale throughout society, it creates distrust by being insincere and devalues sincere expressions of kindness, harming everyone.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    That’s the harm - you’re taking things the body and brain are used to and simulating them to elicit the response you want. I’m sure a company could develop an AI advanced enough to imitate a cute employee who is really into you when you have an issue - and use that to encourage you to spend way more because “they love you”. Hell, I bet you could offer “CEO on HackerNews” as a marketing service - keep an eye on posts involving your company and impersonate the CEO as necessary- and of course be able to actually call him in if needed. Probably already being done …
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      The thing about CEOs on HN is they have to say the right thing to be appealing. CEO on HN saying the wrong thing can really nail down the impression that a company is doing something awful and it’s not just the fault of the marketing intern or some misguided but well intentioned employee. If you hear the same crap from the top in a supposedly personal comment, there’s not much room left for assuming the best.
hnbad 4y ago
The article itself isn't much better. Great way to turn a nice thing from "Aw, that's sweet" to "Ugh, another piece of emotionally manipulative advertising".
- ImprobableTruth 4y ago
  Yeah, if I find out that a company attempts to deceive me with this kind of thing, I'd completely stop buying from them.
iambateman 4y ago
Last year I built an entire service [1] around the idea that scaling handwritten cards was a good business… Before ultimately concluding that you’re right, it’s pretty dystopian. So I called it quits. [1] fountaincards.com
- gregsadetsky 4y ago
  Was it working / were you making money? Automated handwritten notes companies seem like they render text using a handwritten font and then potentially pass it off (via API) to a “print anything and ship it” company — is that an accurate statement? Is there a clear advantage to building and maintaining the hardware / plotting pen portion? i.e. isn’t that something you could do by randomizing font parameters? Also, it does seem like a pretty crowded space - was that ever a problem? Googling “handwritten notes automation” brings up a lot of companies/ads. Thanks. Really curious about this!
  - wallawe 4y ago
    I replied to parent, but we built the company that shows up #3 for that query (at least on my browser) - handwrite.io. I felt that there would be a massive audience for the API so worked on building that out in the early stages while my cofounder built the hardware. It's a super costly process, requires a lot of human touchpoints even when you've automated a lot of the machinery (e.g. sealing and stamping cards). There was a decent amount of competition but even more demand. We had a couple of good sales guys working strictly on commission that got us to 40k MRR ish in a relatively short timespan but the margins were horrible. In the end we burnt out and sold to a client.
    - gregsadetsky 4y ago
      Thanks a lot for sharing, really interesting. I edited my comment so you may not have seen my additional question: why build out hardware vs. outsource the printing / mailing? i.e. with enough randomness in the font/text/letter generation, was it still obvious to tell what was “handwritten” by a plotter vs printed? And re: margins, you could have raised prices but that would have made you not competitive?
ekianjo 4y ago
no more dystopian than AI text or image generation.
colechristensen 4y ago
Not at all new by the way. First parent is 220 years old. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopen Faked signature by machine had been popular for 80 years.

Very reminiscent of the movie Her, where the main character worked at a letter writing service you could pay someone to write thoughtful letters to family and friends.

cm_silva 4y ago
In Japan you can rent a family. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rental_family_service https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rental_family_service
- landemva 4y ago
  In Nevada you can rent a girlfriend experience. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/sex-work-brothel-girlfriend-experience-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-985314/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/sex-wo...
  - enraged_camel 4y ago
    I think that has been a thing in Japan for a long time!
  - kyleee 4y ago
    surely not just in nevada?

lotsofpulp 4y ago

I would have preferred a video FaceTime call from the business owner or one of the partners anyway.

flanbiscuit 4y ago
Let's see, we already have deep faked audio that can be trained to sound like anyone, deep faked video, and chat bots that can be trained to talk/write like anyone, so scaling this to millions of customers is not far off
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Once that happens, I will prefer a home visit and maybe a non soup meal.
- gregsadetsky 4y ago
  It already exists. I won’t link to anyone, but I just found a site claiming to be a “personalization platform for automated 1:1 video messaging” They specifically show that their videos will use text to speech to personalize the “Hi $firstname” greeting at the top of the video. Dystopian, like many people here are saying.

MrBuddyCasino 4y ago

Alternatively, "a scalable way to bring a little bit of joy to many people" is actually nice & good.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
In the short term. In the long term, “a way to reduce trust in society”. It is why I assume everything on social media is staged.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  You should assume zero trust in anything you see at this point, in case that was not already obvious.
hnbad 4y ago
It's not "bringing joy", it's emotional manipulation. Intent matters. This isn't any better than MLM people pretending to be your friend in order to sell you tupperware. In a single naive interaction, sure, it may bring joy. But repeated at scale throughout society, it creates distrust by being insincere and devalues sincere expressions of kindness, harming everyone.
- bombcar 4y ago
  That’s the harm - you’re taking things the body and brain are used to and simulating them to elicit the response you want. I’m sure a company could develop an AI advanced enough to imitate a cute employee who is really into you when you have an issue - and use that to encourage you to spend way more because “they love you”. Hell, I bet you could offer “CEO on HackerNews” as a marketing service - keep an eye on posts involving your company and impersonate the CEO as necessary- and of course be able to actually call him in if needed. Probably already being done …
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    The thing about CEOs on HN is they have to say the right thing to be appealing. CEO on HN saying the wrong thing can really nail down the impression that a company is doing something awful and it’s not just the fault of the marketing intern or some misguided but well intentioned employee. If you hear the same crap from the top in a supposedly personal comment, there’s not much room left for assuming the best.

hnbad 4y ago

The article itself isn't much better. Great way to turn a nice thing from "Aw, that's sweet" to "Ugh, another piece of emotionally manipulative advertising".

ImprobableTruth 4y ago
Yeah, if I find out that a company attempts to deceive me with this kind of thing, I'd completely stop buying from them.

iambateman 4y ago

Last year I built an entire service [1] around the idea that scaling handwritten cards was a good business… Before ultimately concluding that you’re right, it’s pretty dystopian. So I called it quits. [1] fountaincards.com

gregsadetsky 4y ago
Was it working / were you making money? Automated handwritten notes companies seem like they render text using a handwritten font and then potentially pass it off (via API) to a “print anything and ship it” company — is that an accurate statement? Is there a clear advantage to building and maintaining the hardware / plotting pen portion? i.e. isn’t that something you could do by randomizing font parameters? Also, it does seem like a pretty crowded space - was that ever a problem? Googling “handwritten notes automation” brings up a lot of companies/ads. Thanks. Really curious about this!
- wallawe 4y ago
  I replied to parent, but we built the company that shows up #3 for that query (at least on my browser) - handwrite.io. I felt that there would be a massive audience for the API so worked on building that out in the early stages while my cofounder built the hardware. It's a super costly process, requires a lot of human touchpoints even when you've automated a lot of the machinery (e.g. sealing and stamping cards). There was a decent amount of competition but even more demand. We had a couple of good sales guys working strictly on commission that got us to 40k MRR ish in a relatively short timespan but the margins were horrible. In the end we burnt out and sold to a client.
  - gregsadetsky 4y ago
    Thanks a lot for sharing, really interesting. I edited my comment so you may not have seen my additional question: why build out hardware vs. outsource the printing / mailing? i.e. with enough randomness in the font/text/letter generation, was it still obvious to tell what was “handwritten” by a plotter vs printed? And re: margins, you could have raised prices but that would have made you not competitive?

ekianjo 4y ago

no more dystopian than AI text or image generation.

colechristensen 4y ago

Not at all new by the way. First parent is 220 years old. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopen Faked signature by machine had been popular for 80 years.