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Can AI help you tell your news report ? That ’s the idea behind a startup calledAutobiographer , which leverage AI engineering to wage user in meaningful conversations about the case in their life and how they mat about them , and then turn those into prose , effectively create your own autobiography .
The inauguration is dabbling in an country that ’s been fraught with debate — many people have rebelled against the idea that AI could replace art , writing and other creative endeavors . But in Autobiographer ’s case , the AI guides the user to severalize their own story , in their own Holy Writ , then organise that into output that can be exported as a PDF , and perhaps , one Clarence Day , border and print as well . In other words , it do work more as a collaborator rather than the solitary creator .
The app may not replace professionally handwritten narrative , but it could serve as a way to document class story or a friendship , or create a relic for your tyke .
Autobiographer co - founder and CEOMatt Bowmansees the app as a way to depart behind a narrative for his godchildren . Before make at Facebook in the Bay Area , Bowman antecedently served in the Army Special Forces , where he was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan . As a result , he ’s lived through loss that have shaped his worldview .
“ I have a bunch of great stories about my supporter in the armed forces — so many funny events , so many unique and amazing events — a slew of which we learn at the funeral for some of my in force protagonist . Now it ’s my occupation to figure out how to synthesize those and give them to my godchild , ” Bowman enunciate . He want them to be capable to find out more about their dada , his life in the military and what he was like as a person .
“ The applied science has now come to a seat where it ’s possible to do this , ” Bowman explain . “ We can actually severalize these stories , speak them verbally and then reverse them into beautiful keepsakes that we can bring home the bacon to those around us . ”
Bowman teamed up with James Barnes , who had also worked at Facebook through the 2016 and 2018 elections , where he was notably one of the first people to notice the issue with the datum harvesting scandalCambridge Analytica — an consequence that conduct to his participation in several subsequent depositions and subpoenas . He later pull up stakes Facebook to take up a Super PAC to fight Trump . As he was play around with OpenAI ’s GPT-3 , he found that artificial intelligence could serve him treat the things he had been through in his own life sentence , let in these milestones .
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“ Artificial intelligence had this unbelievable reflective mental ability to see myself , my fib and my upshot , ” Barnes says .
While Barnes and Bowman did n’t overlap at Facebook , they met up last year in San Francisco , as Barnes was seeking someone with military expertise to help the squad ( which also includes co - founders Luke Schoenfelder and Ivan Almaral ) experiment with this idea of using AI for storytelling . The two bring together over their shared goals and other experience , including their interest in psychedelic medical specialty .
“ Exploring consciousness was a fundamental point of connexion for us , ” explains Barnes . “ As we wreak on these really tangible thing , we ’re also able to recollect about the mental ability of our platform to permit citizenry to introspect and to do more abstract , personal employment , ” he say .
To use the app , you engage in conversations with an AI agent , built on Anthropic technology , that prompts you to severalize a narrative . For instance , the initial command prompt may expect you to tell a story about an escapade you had , reminding you there ’s no rightfield or wrong resolution . you could commence mouth , pause and resume recording , or move on to another question , if you prefer .
The memories are stored in a burial vault , a biometrically protected , encrypted infinite that even Autobiographer staff ca n’t admittance .
“ One of the most authoritative values as James , Luke , Ivan and I came together , was the obvious agreement that no one ’s going to recite their cherished memory or their very emotionally sensitive stories to something that is advertize — or that a bunch of engineers can see on the back terminal , ” read Bowman .
The app let you revisit topics , explore your computer storage and then ultimately turn them into dissimilar types of prose — like a short level or a gratitude missive for a loved one . For now , these are exported as PDFs , but the team would like to offer a publish book at some point .
Autobiographer cost $ 199 per year — tacky than a ghost , for sure , but also expensive enough to monish some .
The companionship has now also partner with journalist Katie Couric , who will serve as a promotional better half for the startup . Her theatrical role is still being defined , however .
The company behind Autobiographer was launch three and one-half years ago , but has undergo several pivots . The most recent version of the app , plunge today , was started a class ago .
Autobiographer is game by $ 4 million in pre - seed funding from various house .
