rajatrocks

My tool is not limiting anyone's reach or suppressing content.

It's giving people a tool to get more information, hopefully reputable, on a "fact".

I'd amend that to say "Fact checkers *can* be a tool to silence the voices they don't like".

The tool I built enables people to check a statement against the knowledge of Google Search and then decide for themselves.

Is Google Search 100% accurate? No, it's based on information from people, and people lie, manipulate, fudge and deceive. Information changes, facts change.

But I believe that it's a better alternative than blindly accepting or rejecting everything that you read.

misinformation = getting the facts wrong ex: The lawyer who cited nonexistent cases from ChatGPT in court

disinformation = intentionally misstating the facts in an effort to mislead ex: "January 6th was a day of peace and love"

I certainly could, but it feels like that would quickly derail on specifics and that you have a point that you want to make. I'd like to hear it.

I appreciate the definition, but I'm not understanding your point?

fact-check : to verify the factual accuracy of

"Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fact-check

Thank you for the feedback!

1) 100% agreed. I would never release a tool like this that just used an LLM. But this tool uses Grounding with Google Search. So in this case Gemini uses Google Search as a tool to try to verify whether the statement is true or not. If it cannot ground its response, it returns a message saying that it can't fact check the statement - it will never return an LLM's "opinion". If it can ground it, it returns an answer with citations and links to Google searches.

2) That may be true. But even I have found it useful as I'm reading comments on YouTube posts and in Facebook groups to verify whether what people are saying is true or not. Even people I agree with spread (intentionally or not) spread mis- and disinformation since it's so easy to do.

3) Per the first point, since it's grounded in Google Search it is giving very real-time responses. Try it with the headlines on any news site. If you look at the video on the home page, you can see that it's fact checking the Super Bowl outcome.

This was made possible by last week's release of Google Gemini Flash 2.0, which includes 500 grounding requests/day for free: https://ai.google.dev/pricing#2_0flash

Previously grounding was $35 per 1,000 queries.

Thank you, I appreciate it!

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

I first tried out something like this in the early 1990s at VPL Research - one of the originators of the VR industry. They had a visual programming language called Body Electric for controlling how things behaved in VR. Some details here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22788773

And more recently, Google showed PromptChainer for wiring together LLM calls and Javascript: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sherryw/assets/pubs/2022-promptchain...

I had the same exact experience with 2 of my sons. Will start the third (5) on it (Teach Your Child to Read...) this summer.

When I was an undergrad in the CS dept at U.C. Berkeley (88-92), Geoworks is where >everyone< wanted to work.

I interned at VPL Research[1] in 1992 and they had a Mac-based VPL for controlling objects in VR called Body Electric[2] that was really fun to use - especially since I'd never seen anything like it. I implemented gravity for objects and a virtual arm using it. If I remember correctly, debugging could be a challenge. It was later interfaced with Macromedia Director[3] to control desktop apps.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VPL_Research

[2] http://www.jaronlanier.com/vpl.html

[3] http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/lang/bounce/bounce.html

"For instance, Secret’s failure to quickly address the bullying on its network eventually led to its downfall." - this is pure conjecture being presented as fact...

There's a great documentary by Greg Maletic called "Tilt: The Battle to Save Pinball" - http://www.tilt-movie.com/ - highly recommended, and it blows my mind that he made the whole thing himself.

I really like Cargo-Bot for the iPad: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669821/cargo-bot-an-addictive-i...

Got Robot Turtles for the kids (4 and 7) and they got bored pretty quickly since there's only so much you can do (move, turn, shoot).

"Do they know they're competing in the wrong race, and that the right race is not office space or number of employees, but revenue growth?"

Exactly. I would add "... or amount of money raised, or number of customers, or networking events attended, or conferences spoken at, or product features added, or mentions in the press."

I still think there's a lot of room to do something interesting with social and mobile on the spectrum of Real Identity (Facebook) <-----> "Complete" Anonymity (Whisper).

Yik Yak and After School have taken a small step to the left by focusing on specific geographic areas (schools) and that has worked well - a community centered around a shared context/life experience. Secret also took a step to the left with the "Friend" and "Friend of a Friend" concept - one which was ultimately unsuccessful, I think because it threatened to pierce the veil of anonymity, so many people didn't feel safe posting their real "scandalous" content.

And of course with all of the anonymous apps you have the problem of bad behavior. So far we've seen community solutions to this (flagging, downvoting, karma - like here, Reddit, Yik Yak) and company solutions (moderating with 100 people in the Philippines, like Secret and Whisper - http://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/). It would be interesting to think if there might be others.

So the current "anonymish" apps have started from the right (anonymous by default) and either stayed there or moved to the left a bit. One of the things I've been thinking about recently is what would happen if you started from the left (Real Identity/FB) and moved to the right? Would the outcome be any better? I'm actually going to try it out and see with a new mobile app I've been working on - http://www.IAmOffTheClock.com

And as for them taking money off the table in their funding round - good for them. They weighed their offers and took one that eliminated their risk while giving the company enough cash to grow and still giving them a chance for a big payday. If Secret had hit it big, that would have been a very expensive $3M they took off the table. Investors wanted more stock, founders wanted some small amount of liquidity, and at the time everybody was happy, everyone believed, the graphs were all up and to the right, and nobody had a perfect crystal ball.

This seems to be a popular, if misguided meme. I actually wrote a response to this on our blog when it reared it's head in Fortune a month ago: http://www.bunchball.com/blog/post/1462/gamification-just-ge...

I've been living and breathing this for 7 years now. Like anything else, when executed well it works, and there is ample evidence of that, which is why companies like SAP, Applebee's, Marriott, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Urban Outfitters, and Adobe are all customers of ours.

btw - I also wrote a book on the topic: http://loyalty30.com

Hi all - long-time reader, infrequent poster. McGraw-Hill published my first book today - "Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification"

The basic premise is that we've all become "walking data generators", and smart companies can take that data and use it to motivate better performance - just like video game designers have done for 40 years: http://loyalty30.com/resources/why-did-gamification-come-vid...

If you get a chance to read it, I'd love to hear what you think.

People I really respect have said some nice things, including:

"Loyalty 3.0 is filled with major insights, and does a brilliant job of grounding the reader in fundamental concepts around motivation, big data, and gamification - building on these concepts through real-world case studies that bring the combinations to life – and finishing with actionable ideas and next steps that enable you to test and operationalize these ideas in your own workplace and personal life." - Brad Smith, President & CEO, Intuit

"A fascinating insight into how companies are exploiting big data." - Mark Read, CEO, WPP Digital

"Rajat Paharia comprehensively explains how to create loyalty in the modern world full of data and connectivity. If you want to learn how to motivate and inspire employees, you must read this book.” - Dave Kerpen, New York Times bestselling author of Likeable Social Media and Likeable Business

“Rajat pioneered the business use of big data and game mechanics to transform the customer experience. A decade before anyone else, he saw that the same techniques that video game designers had used for years — fast feedback, badges, competition, goals, and leveling up — were also incredibly powerful for motivating behavior outside of games, and an industry was born. This book shares his secrets." - Clara Shih, CEO, Hearsay Social, author of The Facebook Era, and Board Member at Starbucks

"Relationships are the single greatest asset for all organizations. Relationships with customers, relationships with employees, relationships with partners. In Loyalty 3.0, Rajat Paharia reveals the new science of relationship building through big data and gamification." - Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO

“In this powerful and groundbreaking book, Rajat Paharia clearly demonstrates how big data, motivation, and gamification can be utilized to create true engagement and loyalty. We believe Loyalty 3.0 will be a game changer for our associates and guests.” - Ray Bennett, Chief Lodging Services Officer at Marriott International

Redwood City, CA. FULL-TIME and INTERN

Bunchball is the leader in gamification (aka "Motivating People through Data") and works with companies including the NFL, Coca-Cola, Urban Outfitters, Cisco, Salesforce.com, Adobe, USA Network, Showtime, Marriott, Clorox, and 300 more to drive business results by motivating customers, partners, and employees to excel.

- Want to design and code amazing interfaces that our customers love? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD6z1RwNgSM

- Want to work on a web service that has to handle the NFL's traffic on game day?

- Want to work with our customers to design programs that solve their business problems while making experiences more engaging for users? This is the next generation of interaction design.

- Want a giant database of user activity data to slice, dice, and derive insights from?

- Want to come in and OWN a product for 2 years - working with engineering, sales, marketing, etc., so that you get all the experience that you need to go off and start your own company?

Then check out our open positions: http://www.bunchball.com/careers/openings and apply for something.

Feel free to reach out to me directly: rajat [a][t] bunchball.com

btw - we also just wrote a book, which will be out in a few weeks: http://loyalty30.com

San Jose, CA

Bunchball (game mechanics, gamification) is hiring a Deployment Engineer and a Program/Interaction Designer

http://www.bunchball.com/careers/

Good list Jason! I'm still here, and have been watching all the newcomers to the space with interest.

We've been providing our Nitro game mechanics platform to companies like NBC, Comcast, Hasbro, Warner Bros., etc. since 2007. We also have several startup customers and even a non-profit (Hope Lab - check out the cool work they're doing to combat tween obesity: http://www.uncommonprojects.com/uplog/2010/06/08/introducing...).

We've had 3 years of development, customer feedback, and on-the-job learning, so our platform's gotten pretty good, as has our team. And we have some cool stuff planned for the rest of this year and next.

Check out our website, and if you're interested in learning more, drop me a line. - rajat