22 ms·

Show HN: Open-source real-time talk-to-AI wearable device for few $

103 points by zq2240 2y ago

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.

jstanley 2y ago
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.
- afro88 2y ago
  For the use case that this project is for?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- zq2240 2y ago
  Yeah, I know your point. Compared with human communication, I think talk with AI can be self-paced.
- willsmith72 2y ago
  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.
- josephg 2y ago
  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 2y ago
  I want to talk my input and read its output. Both are faster.
danielbln 2y ago
Any plans for being able to run the entire thing locally with local models?
- _joel 2y ago
  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/ https://lmstudio.ai/
  - homarp 2y ago
    or with open source tools like llama.cpp - https://github.com/ggerganov/llama.cpp/blob/master/examples/server/README.md https://github.com/ggerganov/llama.cpp/blob/master/examples/... or mistral.rs - https://github.com/EricLBuehler/mistral.rs/blob/master/docs/HTTP.md https://github.com/EricLBuehler/mistral.rs/blob/master/docs/... lmstudio and ollama use llama.cpp underneath. cut the middle man
- zq2240 2y ago
  Thanks for asking. We will launch local LLM, STT, and TTS models in the near future versions.
echoangle 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
allears 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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.
- akadeb 2y ago
  Thanks for the useful feedback. I just updated our product page with the subscription price. Since you can use docker for our backend, you can self-host your own service with our hardware. You can use our subscription only if you want us to handle the STT/TTS/LLM costs
stavros 2y ago
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.
- zq2240 2y ago
  Hi, you can check out this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq2FRv0lCPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq2FRv0lCPw. I think it might be useful to you
  - stavros 2y ago
    This is great, thank you!
- akadeb 2y ago
  Neat! How can I help you? I think our devkit's components will help you get started. Here is the main.cpp code for this ``` /* * @file streams-i2s-webserver_wav.ino * * This sketch reads sound data from I2S. The result is provided as WAV stream which can be listened to in a Web Browser * * @author Phil Schatzmann * @copyright GPLv3 / #include <WiFi.h> #include "AudioTools.h" const char ssid = "<stavros_ssid>"; const char *password = "stavros_pw"; AudioWAVServer server(ssid, password); I2SStream i2sStream; ConverterFillLeftAndRight<int16_t> filler(LeftIsEmpty); // fill both channels - or change to RightIsEmpty void setup() { Serial.begin(115200); AudioLogger::instance().begin(Serial, AudioLogger::Info); // // Connect to Wi-Fi Serial.println("Connecting to WiFi..."); WiFi.begin(ssid, password); while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) { delay(1000); Serial.println("Connecting..."); } Serial.println("Connected to WiFi"); // Print the IP address Serial.print("IP address: "); Serial.println(WiFi.localIP()); // start i2s input with default configuration Serial.println("starting I2S..."); auto config = i2sStream.defaultConfig(RX_MODE); // working well config.i2s_format = I2S_STD_FORMAT; config.sample_rate = 44100; // INMP441 supports up to 44.1kHz config.channels = 1; // INMP441 is mono config.bits_per_sample = 16; // INMP441 is a 24-bit ADC config.pin_ws = 19; // Adjust these pins according to your wiring config.pin_bck = 18; config.pin_data = 21; config.use_apll = true; // Try with APLL for better clock stability i2sStream.begin(config); Serial.println("I2S started"); // start data sink server.begin(i2sStream, config, &filler); } // Arduino loop void loop() { // Handle new connections server.copy(); } ``` This code just listens to audio you record on a microphone (INMP441 MEMS microphone used here) and streams it to an endpoint of the microcontroller's IP address. If you would like more help on this give me a shout anytime. my email: akash at starmoon dot app
butterfly42069 2y ago
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 :)
- akadeb 2y ago
  thanks for your words of encouragement! > A lot of the subscription based pull ins could be replaced by networking into a machine running whisper/ollama etc anyway. could you clarify this point? I think local LLMs are great for us to reduce cost and improve privacy concerns. For conversational AI however, is there a better way to run STT and TTS models?
  - butterfly42069 2y ago
    Can I message you on github, I'll happily go in depth with you and you can pick my brain :)
throwaway314155 2y ago
> 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 2y ago
  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.
  - tempodox 2y ago
    Ultimately, you are repackaging the services of actual LLM suppliers without having any knowledge or control of how those services might develop in the future. So it is logically and physically impossible for you to represent the fitness of those services for any purpose whatsoever. And anyone else you may have asked questions about this cannot either. I can only urge you to reconsider how honest, realistic, and credible those promises you make can possibly be. After all, you are playing with the lives and wellbeing of humans here. Every drug and therapeutic device has to go through rigorous vetting and testing before being cleared for human treatment. Ever heard of clinical trials? And you seriously think you can skip that with “we asked some pediatricians”? Please, think again. And ask someone with more domain knowledge than vague hopes in a technology they don't understand.
vunderba 2y ago
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.
- akadeb 2y ago
  For our device currently, conversational audio is only used by the LLM when a button is pressed like a "push-to-talk" feature. In the future we want to either make it a capacitive touch sensor or listen for a wake word, like "Hi starmoon". I think it would be awesome to actually have models be running locally. And we don't have to have any conversation data stored in our db. But I agree with your thought, I think this is a big fear with google home and alexa as well. ie. Are home automation tools always listening to our conversations. IIRC pre-wake word detection, none of the audio recorded is used to market products to you.
deanputney 2y ago
Is this specific hardware necessary? If I wanted to run this on a Raspberry Pi zero, for example, is that possible?
- zq2240 2y ago
  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.
- akadeb 2y ago
  Dean I think that's important feedback. It's important for us to be platform agnostic. Like Junru stated, we are supporting ESP32 models: WROOM/WROVER and S3. But down the line would like to support rasp pi 4B, 5, zero etc. Would you like to try building it with our devkit? We will prioritize raspberry pi firmware support if there is enough demand around this.
napoleongl 2y ago
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.
- akadeb 2y ago
  Oh I see that. what inspection scenario you are thinking of? Have you faced something similar as the inspector and needed structured data immediately?
aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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."
    - arendtio 2y ago
      I think the plausibility is granted by the usage of the emotion intelligence model[1]. However, I agree with you that this is very thin ice. Given the selection of books used as decoration in the video, the authors seem to have more of a business background [2] than one of psychology. I don't like calling someone a liar when no evidence is present (either way). I would rather say: 'Bold claims, can you prove it?' [1]: https://github.com/StarmoonAI/Starmoon/blob/main/.env.example#L14 https://github.com/StarmoonAI/Starmoon/blob/main/.env.exampl... [2]: https://youtu.be/59rwFuCMviE?t=69 https://youtu.be/59rwFuCMviE?t=69
gcanyon 2y ago
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 2y ago
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.
- w-ll 2y ago
  For sure we are getting toys like that by next xmass. I legit going into my parts bin to see if I can wipe something up to stick in a teddy bear right now... Might not have movement, but a talking teddy bear is fun little project.
  - akadeb 2y ago
    will I think the devkit on our website will speed up your project. And if you would like extra parts (like a servo) for a moving teddy head, I am happy to send it to you free of charge. email me at akash at starmoon dot app
- akadeb 2y ago
  I have yet to watch AI (2001). I was very inspired by asimov's book the positronic man where the main family robot Andrew NDR has a positronic brain and finds himself "feeling" human emotions.
crooked-v 2y ago
So one big question is, will the service refuse to answer when topics like sex, self harm, physical violence, drug use, or the like come up? Every bigcorp LLM tends towards the social propriety of a Victorian governess, and for plenty of people being able to talk about those things is a baseline requirement for even the blandest 'friend'.
- wokwokwok 2y ago
  Yes, it will refuse, because it uses openAI for the model. The interesting thing to do with this project would be to fork it and run it with open inference models. …buuuuuut, this is one of those “modern” web apps that has a dozen third party api dependencies to worry about, built on non-self-hostable platform (superbase) so even if you wanted to, it’s probably actually impossible to run in an isolated sandbox you completely control. /shrug
xtagon 2y ago
I highly, highly doubt we've reached the level of AI safety required to make it a good idea to replace (or even just supplement) caregivers for children. Nobody has truly solved the safety problems with AI yet, just doing the best they can--seems like a terrible idea to put that in direct intimate access of emotionally vulnerable children. We've already passed the threshold of AI suggesting to testers to commit suicide[0], and the bar has been raised to actual users being told that[1] and someone reportedly following through.[2] [0]: https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/news/medical-chatbot-openai-gpt3-patient-kill-themselves/ https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/news/medical-cha... [1]: https://ainiro.io/blog/googles-ai-encouraging-people-to-commit-suicide https://ainiro.io/blog/googles-ai-encouraging-people-to-comm... [2]: https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/03/31/man-ends-his-life-after-an-ai-chatbot-encouraged-him-to-sacrifice-himself-to-stop-climate- https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/03/31/man-ends-his-life-a...
endofreach 2y ago
Why not just give kids MDMA if they feel lonely?
- akadeb 2y ago
  I think I heard this on a joe rogan podcast. Will add this to our roadmap along with DMT as an alternative.

103 points by zq2240 2y ago

jstanley 2y ago

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.

afro88 2y ago
For the use case that this project is for?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
zq2240 2y ago
Yeah, I know your point. Compared with human communication, I think talk with AI can be self-paced.
willsmith72 2y ago
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.
josephg 2y ago
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 2y ago
I want to talk my input and read its output. Both are faster.

danielbln 2y ago

Any plans for being able to run the entire thing locally with local models?

_joel 2y ago
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/ https://lmstudio.ai/
- homarp 2y ago
  or with open source tools like llama.cpp - https://github.com/ggerganov/llama.cpp/blob/master/examples/server/README.md https://github.com/ggerganov/llama.cpp/blob/master/examples/... or mistral.rs - https://github.com/EricLBuehler/mistral.rs/blob/master/docs/HTTP.md https://github.com/EricLBuehler/mistral.rs/blob/master/docs/... lmstudio and ollama use llama.cpp underneath. cut the middle man
zq2240 2y ago
Thanks for asking. We will launch local LLM, STT, and TTS models in the near future versions.

echoangle 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago

allears 2y ago

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 2y ago
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.
akadeb 2y ago
Thanks for the useful feedback. I just updated our product page with the subscription price. Since you can use docker for our backend, you can self-host your own service with our hardware. You can use our subscription only if you want us to handle the STT/TTS/LLM costs

stavros 2y ago

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.

zq2240 2y ago
Hi, you can check out this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq2FRv0lCPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq2FRv0lCPw. I think it might be useful to you
- stavros 2y ago
  This is great, thank you!
akadeb 2y ago
Neat! How can I help you? I think our devkit's components will help you get started. Here is the main.cpp code for this ``` /* * @file streams-i2s-webserver_wav.ino * * This sketch reads sound data from I2S. The result is provided as WAV stream which can be listened to in a Web Browser * * @author Phil Schatzmann * @copyright GPLv3 / #include <WiFi.h> #include "AudioTools.h" const char ssid = "<stavros_ssid>"; const char *password = "stavros_pw"; AudioWAVServer server(ssid, password); I2SStream i2sStream; ConverterFillLeftAndRight<int16_t> filler(LeftIsEmpty); // fill both channels - or change to RightIsEmpty void setup() { Serial.begin(115200); AudioLogger::instance().begin(Serial, AudioLogger::Info); // // Connect to Wi-Fi Serial.println("Connecting to WiFi..."); WiFi.begin(ssid, password); while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) { delay(1000); Serial.println("Connecting..."); } Serial.println("Connected to WiFi"); // Print the IP address Serial.print("IP address: "); Serial.println(WiFi.localIP()); // start i2s input with default configuration Serial.println("starting I2S..."); auto config = i2sStream.defaultConfig(RX_MODE); // working well config.i2s_format = I2S_STD_FORMAT; config.sample_rate = 44100; // INMP441 supports up to 44.1kHz config.channels = 1; // INMP441 is mono config.bits_per_sample = 16; // INMP441 is a 24-bit ADC config.pin_ws = 19; // Adjust these pins according to your wiring config.pin_bck = 18; config.pin_data = 21; config.use_apll = true; // Try with APLL for better clock stability i2sStream.begin(config); Serial.println("I2S started"); // start data sink server.begin(i2sStream, config, &filler); } // Arduino loop void loop() { // Handle new connections server.copy(); } ``` This code just listens to audio you record on a microphone (INMP441 MEMS microphone used here) and streams it to an endpoint of the microcontroller's IP address. If you would like more help on this give me a shout anytime. my email: akash at starmoon dot app

butterfly42069 2y ago

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 :)

akadeb 2y ago
thanks for your words of encouragement! > A lot of the subscription based pull ins could be replaced by networking into a machine running whisper/ollama etc anyway. could you clarify this point? I think local LLMs are great for us to reduce cost and improve privacy concerns. For conversational AI however, is there a better way to run STT and TTS models?
- butterfly42069 2y ago
  Can I message you on github, I'll happily go in depth with you and you can pick my brain :)

throwaway314155 2y ago

> 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 2y ago
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.
- tempodox 2y ago
  Ultimately, you are repackaging the services of actual LLM suppliers without having any knowledge or control of how those services might develop in the future. So it is logically and physically impossible for you to represent the fitness of those services for any purpose whatsoever. And anyone else you may have asked questions about this cannot either. I can only urge you to reconsider how honest, realistic, and credible those promises you make can possibly be. After all, you are playing with the lives and wellbeing of humans here. Every drug and therapeutic device has to go through rigorous vetting and testing before being cleared for human treatment. Ever heard of clinical trials? And you seriously think you can skip that with “we asked some pediatricians”? Please, think again. And ask someone with more domain knowledge than vague hopes in a technology they don't understand.

vunderba 2y ago

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.

akadeb 2y ago
For our device currently, conversational audio is only used by the LLM when a button is pressed like a "push-to-talk" feature. In the future we want to either make it a capacitive touch sensor or listen for a wake word, like "Hi starmoon". I think it would be awesome to actually have models be running locally. And we don't have to have any conversation data stored in our db. But I agree with your thought, I think this is a big fear with google home and alexa as well. ie. Are home automation tools always listening to our conversations. IIRC pre-wake word detection, none of the audio recorded is used to market products to you.

deanputney 2y ago

Is this specific hardware necessary? If I wanted to run this on a Raspberry Pi zero, for example, is that possible?

zq2240 2y ago
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.
akadeb 2y ago
Dean I think that's important feedback. It's important for us to be platform agnostic. Like Junru stated, we are supporting ESP32 models: WROOM/WROVER and S3. But down the line would like to support rasp pi 4B, 5, zero etc. Would you like to try building it with our devkit? We will prioritize raspberry pi firmware support if there is enough demand around this.

napoleongl 2y ago

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.

akadeb 2y ago
Oh I see that. what inspection scenario you are thinking of? Have you faced something similar as the inspector and needed structured data immediately?

aithrowawaycomm 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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."
  - arendtio 2y ago
    I think the plausibility is granted by the usage of the emotion intelligence model[1]. However, I agree with you that this is very thin ice. Given the selection of books used as decoration in the video, the authors seem to have more of a business background [2] than one of psychology. I don't like calling someone a liar when no evidence is present (either way). I would rather say: 'Bold claims, can you prove it?' [1]: https://github.com/StarmoonAI/Starmoon/blob/main/.env.example#L14 https://github.com/StarmoonAI/Starmoon/blob/main/.env.exampl... [2]: https://youtu.be/59rwFuCMviE?t=69 https://youtu.be/59rwFuCMviE?t=69

gcanyon 2y ago

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 2y ago

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.

w-ll 2y ago
For sure we are getting toys like that by next xmass. I legit going into my parts bin to see if I can wipe something up to stick in a teddy bear right now... Might not have movement, but a talking teddy bear is fun little project.
- akadeb 2y ago
  will I think the devkit on our website will speed up your project. And if you would like extra parts (like a servo) for a moving teddy head, I am happy to send it to you free of charge. email me at akash at starmoon dot app
akadeb 2y ago
I have yet to watch AI (2001). I was very inspired by asimov's book the positronic man where the main family robot Andrew NDR has a positronic brain and finds himself "feeling" human emotions.

crooked-v 2y ago

So one big question is, will the service refuse to answer when topics like sex, self harm, physical violence, drug use, or the like come up? Every bigcorp LLM tends towards the social propriety of a Victorian governess, and for plenty of people being able to talk about those things is a baseline requirement for even the blandest 'friend'.

wokwokwok 2y ago
Yes, it will refuse, because it uses openAI for the model. The interesting thing to do with this project would be to fork it and run it with open inference models. …buuuuuut, this is one of those “modern” web apps that has a dozen third party api dependencies to worry about, built on non-self-hostable platform (superbase) so even if you wanted to, it’s probably actually impossible to run in an isolated sandbox you completely control. /shrug

xtagon 2y ago

I highly, highly doubt we've reached the level of AI safety required to make it a good idea to replace (or even just supplement) caregivers for children. Nobody has truly solved the safety problems with AI yet, just doing the best they can--seems like a terrible idea to put that in direct intimate access of emotionally vulnerable children. We've already passed the threshold of AI suggesting to testers to commit suicide[0], and the bar has been raised to actual users being told that[1] and someone reportedly following through.[2] [0]: https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/news/medical-chatbot-openai-gpt3-patient-kill-themselves/ https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/news/medical-cha... [1]: https://ainiro.io/blog/googles-ai-encouraging-people-to-commit-suicide https://ainiro.io/blog/googles-ai-encouraging-people-to-comm... [2]: https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/03/31/man-ends-his-life-after-an-ai-chatbot-encouraged-him-to-sacrifice-himself-to-stop-climate- https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/03/31/man-ends-his-life-a...

endofreach 2y ago

Why not just give kids MDMA if they feel lonely?

akadeb 2y ago
I think I heard this on a joe rogan podcast. Will add this to our roadmap along with DMT as an alternative.