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Show HN: Open source alternative to ChatGPT and ChatPDF-like AI tools

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Re: Show HN: Open source alternative to ChatGPT and ChatPDF-like AI tools

#41
post #32

I couldn't find this info in the readme... does this tool anonymize ChatGPT requests? What does it mean that it's a private an secure tool in the context of using ChatGPT?

it runs an llm in a docker container. doesn't send any requests to chatgpt

The demo video is using ChatGPT.

Re: Show HN: Open source alternative to ChatGPT and ChatPDF-like AI tools

#42
post #31
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but they claim it runs on Linux when it runs on Systemd.

What you guys are referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux plus Systemd. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities, and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU…

Cutting off "I’d just like to interject for a moment" from this pasta is herecy.

Re: Show HN: Open source alternative to ChatGPT and ChatPDF-like AI tools

#43
I see many of my friends building some kind of RAG system with chat interface.

I have been building some stuff on top of the OpenAi interface (to use their store) but find myself wanting to implement some simple UI elements (like a date selected or a simple dashboard).

So I feel like these types of apps have a few re occurring elements:

1. A chat interface „frontend“ (with threads, interfaces to popular APIs or local models) nice Ui ideally extensibility to some custom UI elements authentication etc.

2. API calls. (E.g. like OpenAI actions) Simplest case just reading and writing to a db (simple crud).

3. Local data + RAG. With a custom retrieval/search logic could be embeddings or simpler search methods.

Do you know open source software for all three elements? Of course you can piece it together and maybe this is the best approach. But maybe you could build something integrated.

Re: Show HN: Open source alternative to ChatGPT and ChatPDF-like AI tools

#44
post #13

How do you get value from chatting with documents? I can scan and read a pdf faster than I can chat with an AI about it. There must be more to it than I realize.

a one-page PDF, sure. But if it's a 500 page pdf of a law and/or regulation, then definitely not.

How can you chat with a pdf which doesn’t fit in the context window? I mean with a 500 page pdf you might need 100 context windows to fully grok it.

Basically it makes no sense to “chat” with a 500 page pdf with todays LLMs.

Re: Show HN: Open source alternative to ChatGPT and ChatPDF-like AI tools

#45
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this doesn’t work on Nix, pls fix

I also use NixOS, but if the target was not NixOS, I don't think you should be requesting the set up as needing fixing by the author. It just doesn't sound right - or maybe it is just me. NixOS isn't the defacto standard, and breaks the Linux FHS to achieve all the good stuff it does do. Either try to package it or use a docker image or maybe raise an issue noting the blocker and request it as a feature for some chan…

You guys really didn't get the joke, right? <-)

Re: Show HN: Open source alternative to ChatGPT and ChatPDF-like AI tools

#46

I see many of my friends building some kind of RAG system with chat interface. I have been building some stuff on top of the OpenAi interface (to use their store) but find myself wanting to implement some simple UI elements (like a date selected or a simple dashboard). So I feel like these types of apps have a few re occurring elements: 1. A chat interface „frontend“ (with threads, interfaces to popular APIs or local…

about #3 I’ll recommend https://github.com/microsoft/kernel-memory :)

Re: Show HN: Open source alternative to ChatGPT and ChatPDF-like AI tools

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a one-page PDF, sure. But if it's a 500 page pdf of a law and/or regulation, then definitely not.

How can you chat with a pdf which doesn’t fit in the context window? I mean with a 500 page pdf you might need 100 context windows to fully grok it. Basically it makes no sense to “chat” with a 500 page pdf with todays LLMs.

That is what the RAG system does. The PDF is chunked and thrown into a vector store. And then when prompted, only the relevant bits are retrieved and stuffed into the context and sent to the LLM.

So yeah it's kinda smoke and mirrors. In some cases, for some long PDFs, it works really well. If it's a 500 page PDF with many disparate topics, it may do fine.

Re: Show HN: Open source alternative to ChatGPT and ChatPDF-like AI tools

#48
post #5

Great job. This is a relatively crowded area, particularly RAG style chat systems. It might be nice for SecureAI to call out what makes their product different from other open source players in the same space, specifically Khoj and Danswer, both of which allow you to chat with your documents, offer network authentication, and allow you to plug in your own LLM. Danswer https://github.com/danswer-ai/danswer Khoj https:…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Open source alternative to ChatGPT and ChatPDF-like AI tools

#49

Can a directory of PDFs be queried or does it only support a single document?

Right now it supports selecting & uploading a _few_ PDFs on chat-creation. Those PDFs get indexed online -- i.e. while the user waits. So it doesn't scale well with the number of PDFs selected in a chat because you'd have to wait that long before the chat responds with your initial question/prompt.

We plan to make this indexing process offline, where you can create a document collection based on either a directory upload or an integrated data source like Google Drive, Notion, Confluence, etc. Then the system would start indexing that collection in the background and notify you once indexing is complete. Once a collection is indexed, users can select it when creating a new chat and query against it.

Let us know if you have any thoughts on this proposed solution.

Re: Show HN: Open source alternative to ChatGPT and ChatPDF-like AI tools

#50

I see many of my friends building some kind of RAG system with chat interface. I have been building some stuff on top of the OpenAi interface (to use their store) but find myself wanting to implement some simple UI elements (like a date selected or a simple dashboard). So I feel like these types of apps have a few re occurring elements: 1. A chat interface „frontend“ (with threads, interfaces to popular APIs or local…

I love the idea of allowing anyone to build apps or experiences on top of some of these common elements.

We have briefly discussed an approach where we make some of these common elements available as abstractions and let people build "apps" on top of it. It would operate kind of similar to how Google's app store does in that the head use cases (email, photos, camera, etc) are first-party apps, but then anyone can build and publish a third-party app using the Android SDK.

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