Live data from Hacker News

Flowrite: Turn short lists of facts into well-written emails

flowrite.com

11–20 of 56 posts

Re: Flowrite: Turn short lists of facts into well-written emails

#11
post #5

This is an interesting interface for a sophisticated machine learning model. The user input is a moderately structured prompt (a line-delimited list of facts) and the output is text crafted for a particular medium (email). This could be extended to support output for other mediums, such as Blog posts or social media updates. It does drive me slightly crazy that this system JUST INJECTS NOISE. You provide it with conc…

If the example is correct, it's injecting more than fluff and flourish. It injected "After weeks of hard work", which doesn't seem supported by anything in the input, and probably sets the wrong tone. Certainly it was at least many months of work prior to launch.

Re: Flowrite: Turn short lists of facts into well-written emails

#12
post #7

Can it turn a well written email into a short list of facts? That seems more useful.

There was a pretty good sci-fi story in (IIRC) Omni, wherein someone figures out how to make a computer that can scan in a document and produce a clear, simple summary.

The main character is a friend of the inventor, who can't seem to make any sales. Later, they run into each other again, and the inventor is HUGELY rich.

Turns out he realized that the original idea was a flop, reversed the process, and sold it to law firms.

Re: Flowrite: Turn short lists of facts into well-written emails

#14
post #9

Maybe I'm weird, but I kinda prefer the original "short list of facts". In general I prefer email to be short and direct.

Indeed. Seems like having the needles and adding straw for aesthetics. Looks ideal to automate long writing, though.

Re: Flowrite: Turn short lists of facts into well-written emails

#15
post #7

Can it turn a well written email into a short list of facts? That seems more useful.

I think that's something along the lines of this. (I don't know much about it, just listened to the podcast.)

https://hanselminutes.com/763/tldr-extreme-summarization-as-...

Re: Flowrite: Turn short lists of facts into well-written emails

#17
post #11
post #5

This is an interesting interface for a sophisticated machine learning model. The user input is a moderately structured prompt (a line-delimited list of facts) and the output is text crafted for a particular medium (email). This could be extended to support output for other mediums, such as Blog posts or social media updates. It does drive me slightly crazy that this system JUST INJECTS NOISE. You provide it with conc…

If the example is correct, it's injecting more than fluff and flourish. It injected "After weeks of hard work" , which doesn't seem supported by anything in the input, and probably sets the wrong tone. Certainly it was at least many months of work prior to launch.

Scroll up or go to https://www.flowrite.com/?ref=lbixer#examples to see more examples of what it can do.

Re: Flowrite: Turn short lists of facts into well-written emails

#18
post #5

This is an interesting interface for a sophisticated machine learning model. The user input is a moderately structured prompt (a line-delimited list of facts) and the output is text crafted for a particular medium (email). This could be extended to support output for other mediums, such as Blog posts or social media updates. It does drive me slightly crazy that this system JUST INJECTS NOISE. You provide it with conc…

Put it is way, it might make it easier to write the reverse system that convert a (machine generated) noisy input text to a succinct list of facts :).

Re: Flowrite: Turn short lists of facts into well-written emails

#19
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I think such communication serves a purpose, how is it much different than boilerplate code?

The example seems to indicate it could create issues. It's conjuring, for example "after weeks of hard work" from thin air. There's nothing in the input to suggest that phrase makes contextual sense. Though perhaps the example isn't a real world one.

> It's conjuring, for example "after weeks of hard work" from thin air.

I think this is not that dissimilar from a human writer. Recruiter email's come to mind as an example of this as well.

Re: Flowrite: Turn short lists of facts into well-written emails

#20

Do they have a solution to the (seemingly intractable) problem of people who only read up to the first question in an email, respond to that, and ignore the rest?

Proposal: include the short list of facts as the first paragraph.
Post reply on HN