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Honest question: A random .io website with a punny 4all name and "download and run this file. Totally not a virus." How are users expected to determine whether

Honest question: A random .io website with a punny 4all name and "download and run this file. Totally not a virus." How are users expected to determine whether this is a good idea? Edit: Also no info about the author, seemingly no affiliation to openai (despite being called gpt4all), no license info on the page. Click on the github link and find some "nomic-ai" with no info other than an email address. Is it made by a Nigerian prince or something?

Kelamir 4y ago
Depends on whether you trust their base project https://github.com/nomic-ai/gpt4all https://github.com/nomic-ai/gpt4all . gpt4all is actively distributed over torrent, I actually have over 2.0 ratio
- diffeomorphism 4y ago
  > is actively distributed over torrent, I actually have over 2.0 ratio That, of course, sounds extremely convincing and instantly trustworthy.
  - tudorw 4y ago
    they have around 11k users on Discord, I'm new to Discord but it seems like there and Tiktok are where the juicy bits are. The web is too noisy, unaccountable, slow and broken.
    - tudorw 4y ago
      now 13.5k with 2000 online, the older autoGPT has 3k online and 22k members.
    - diffeomorphism 4y ago
      > I'm new to Discord but it seems like there and Tiktok are where the juicy bits are. You are making this sound even worse.
      - tudorw 4y ago
        I'm 49, Prestel, BBS, Fido, Janet, Usenet, loads of other things..., MySpace, Facebook, Discord, TikTok, Hackernews, I go wherever, why so much dislike, the open web is not the the only network and for realtime authenticated communication it sux.
      - wongarsu 4y ago
        Maybe they also have a Telegram channel in response to constantly having their content removed on Facebook /s
        tudorw 4y ago
        What does this even mean? you judge the world using a Facebook AI's judgement?
      - zeven7 4y ago
        Seriously. There needs to be more work put into the prompt being used to generate these comments.
      - tudorw 4y ago
        It's what others are doing, so I go there to participate, I don't get to choose.
    - Liquix 4y ago
      Aside: trapping information in proprietary silos like Discord and TikTok only breaks the web more. Both require phones/phone numbers to participate. Both ostensibly track users' every move. Even just passively accessing these services normalizes internet communities dying and valuable information being lost forever in a deluge of memes.
      - dcow 3y ago
        Discord requires a phone mumber?
      - herbst 4y ago
        Not even an aside. It actively makes this project uninteresting for anyone who doesn't like to use discord. Valuable information for me
        manyoso 4y ago
        You can use github repos to communicate just fine and no one is requiring usage of discord lol.
      - tudorw 4y ago
        sorry, but what internet community are we talking about, Usenet?
sureglymop 4y ago
An interesting somewhat related thing. GitHub has a program called "GitHub Next" where they work on future stuff. Many of their projects are related to GitHub Copilot. Recently I got an E-Mail from "githubnext.com" (not github.com, mind you) which said something along the lines of: "Congrats, you now have preview access to GitHub Copilot CLI. Please download and globally install this node module, run a command to authenticate it with your GitHub account and then add x lines to your shell profile." I was in all honesty perplexed. I know that it's GitHub who's actually behind it and not some scam. But just because of how much they managed to make it _seem_ like a scam i noped out of their whole program.
- capableweb 4y ago
  I was similarly confused when officially sanctioned GitHub project chose to use a non-github.com domain for their things. But then, we're talking about Microsoft in the end here, who are famous for changing domains every N months at least, particularly when it comes to authentication services. Remind me, how many domains do you go through again when authenticating with online version of Outlook? Last time I looked, they send you through something like 4 different domains. And emails from Microsoft seemingly are on purpose sent from as many different domains as possible.
NorthOf33rd 4y ago
The entire list of contributors look like bots to me. The commit history is sketchy. This seems like a giant leap beyond nomic’s main project which itself seems… thin. The entire thing is fishy.
- manyoso 4y ago
  LOL, the whole code is available here with the entire commit history and everyone who has committed. This is an open source project. https://github.com/nomic-ai/gpt4all-chat https://github.com/nomic-ai/gpt4all-chat But go ahead with your scare mongering.
KennyFromIT 4y ago
This kind of appropriate skepticism is why I love the HN community. This may be a perfectly innocent project, in which case I hope the author notices these comments and adjusts. But this comment highlights the possibility that it might not be so innocent.
nipperkinfeet 4y ago
Why even bother asking the question on here? Everyone in this forum likely has at least one offline test machine in addition to virtual machines, Windows sandboxes, and other resources. Furthermore, the entire code is visible.

Kelamir 4y ago

Depends on whether you trust their base project https://github.com/nomic-ai/gpt4all https://github.com/nomic-ai/gpt4all . gpt4all is actively distributed over torrent, I actually have over 2.0 ratio

diffeomorphism 4y ago
> is actively distributed over torrent, I actually have over 2.0 ratio That, of course, sounds extremely convincing and instantly trustworthy.
- tudorw 4y ago
  they have around 11k users on Discord, I'm new to Discord but it seems like there and Tiktok are where the juicy bits are. The web is too noisy, unaccountable, slow and broken.
  - tudorw 4y ago
    now 13.5k with 2000 online, the older autoGPT has 3k online and 22k members.
  - diffeomorphism 4y ago
    > I'm new to Discord but it seems like there and Tiktok are where the juicy bits are. You are making this sound even worse.
    - tudorw 4y ago
      I'm 49, Prestel, BBS, Fido, Janet, Usenet, loads of other things..., MySpace, Facebook, Discord, TikTok, Hackernews, I go wherever, why so much dislike, the open web is not the the only network and for realtime authenticated communication it sux.
    - wongarsu 4y ago
      Maybe they also have a Telegram channel in response to constantly having their content removed on Facebook /s
      - tudorw 4y ago
        What does this even mean? you judge the world using a Facebook AI's judgement?
    - zeven7 4y ago
      Seriously. There needs to be more work put into the prompt being used to generate these comments.
    - tudorw 4y ago
      It's what others are doing, so I go there to participate, I don't get to choose.
  - Liquix 4y ago
    Aside: trapping information in proprietary silos like Discord and TikTok only breaks the web more. Both require phones/phone numbers to participate. Both ostensibly track users' every move. Even just passively accessing these services normalizes internet communities dying and valuable information being lost forever in a deluge of memes.
    - dcow 3y ago
      Discord requires a phone mumber?
    - herbst 4y ago
      Not even an aside. It actively makes this project uninteresting for anyone who doesn't like to use discord. Valuable information for me
      - manyoso 4y ago
        You can use github repos to communicate just fine and no one is requiring usage of discord lol.
    - tudorw 4y ago
      sorry, but what internet community are we talking about, Usenet?

sureglymop 4y ago

An interesting somewhat related thing. GitHub has a program called "GitHub Next" where they work on future stuff. Many of their projects are related to GitHub Copilot. Recently I got an E-Mail from "githubnext.com" (not github.com, mind you) which said something along the lines of: "Congrats, you now have preview access to GitHub Copilot CLI. Please download and globally install this node module, run a command to authenticate it with your GitHub account and then add x lines to your shell profile." I was in all honesty perplexed. I know that it's GitHub who's actually behind it and not some scam. But just because of how much they managed to make it _seem_ like a scam i noped out of their whole program.

capableweb 4y ago
I was similarly confused when officially sanctioned GitHub project chose to use a non-github.com domain for their things. But then, we're talking about Microsoft in the end here, who are famous for changing domains every N months at least, particularly when it comes to authentication services. Remind me, how many domains do you go through again when authenticating with online version of Outlook? Last time I looked, they send you through something like 4 different domains. And emails from Microsoft seemingly are on purpose sent from as many different domains as possible.

NorthOf33rd 4y ago

The entire list of contributors look like bots to me. The commit history is sketchy. This seems like a giant leap beyond nomic’s main project which itself seems… thin. The entire thing is fishy.

manyoso 4y ago
LOL, the whole code is available here with the entire commit history and everyone who has committed. This is an open source project. https://github.com/nomic-ai/gpt4all-chat https://github.com/nomic-ai/gpt4all-chat But go ahead with your scare mongering.

KennyFromIT 4y ago

This kind of appropriate skepticism is why I love the HN community. This may be a perfectly innocent project, in which case I hope the author notices these comments and adjusts. But this comment highlights the possibility that it might not be so innocent.

nipperkinfeet 4y ago

Why even bother asking the question on here? Everyone in this forum likely has at least one offline test machine in addition to virtual machines, Windows sandboxes, and other resources. Furthermore, the entire code is visible.