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Launch HN: Retell AI (YC W24) – Conversational Speech API for Your LLM

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51–60 of 182 posts

Re: Launch HN: Retell AI (YC W24) – Conversational Speech API for Your LLM

#51

Wonder what the justifications for the different voice prices are...

The different providers have different prices. openai tts & deepgram are cheaper, 11labs are higher

You'll be able to build your own high quality, low latency voices at scale.

Re: Launch HN: Retell AI (YC W24) – Conversational Speech API for Your LLM

#52

The demo was incredible, and this seems perfect for my current project. I am going to try to integrate this as soon as I can to see if it works for me. How responsive can I expect the support to be?

We pride ourselves on being very responsive! We usually create a Slack group with users actively integrating and answer any questions ASAP

Re: Launch HN: Retell AI (YC W24) – Conversational Speech API for Your LLM

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an AI therapy session oh no

The use case I recall involves a nonprofit organization focused on preventing suicide. They are hoping for an AI therapy solution capable of listening to patients and picking up the phone when no human is available. This isn't entirely unacceptable because one of the therapist's roles is to listen to problems, so AI can effectively substitute in this aspect.

You're not wrong, and I agree this is a great use case, but consider calling it crisis response vs a therapist. A therapist is there to help you dig deep, over a long time, crisis response is a tactical mechanism to prevent imminent self harm.

Amazing product, looking forward to working with it.

Re: Launch HN: Retell AI (YC W24) – Conversational Speech API for Your LLM

#55
It's really good, but the AI cracks still show up. Trying the demo therapist, I mentioned I'm not finding a job. It suggested finding a career counsellor and said "it would get back as soon as possible"... yeah, no it didn't. It claimed to be "working on it" but would say "I'm here if you want to speak...". It clearly doesn't understand what it's saying, it feels like bing's ai would be "better" at not claiming to do a task it can't.

Re: Launch HN: Retell AI (YC W24) – Conversational Speech API for Your LLM

#56
With respect to Alignment, it should be a fundamental requirement that an speech AI is ___REQUIRED___ to honestly inform a Human if its speaking to an AI.

Can you please ensure, going forward, you have the universal "truth" as it were, to have your system always identify if its AI when "prompted" (irrespective of what app/dev has built - your API should ensure that if "safeword" is used it shall reveal its AI)

--

"trust me, if you ask them if they are a cop, they legally have to tell you they are a cop" (court rules its legal for cops to lie to you) etc....

(it should be like those tones on a hold-call, to remind you that youre still on hold... but instead its a constant reminder that this bitch is AI) -- there should be some Root-level escape word to require any use of this tool to contact a Human. That word used to be "operator" MANY times, but still...

Maybe if a conversation with an elderly Human goes on with too many "huh? I cant hear you" or "i dont understand, can you repeat that" questions, your AI knows its talking to a non-tech Human, and it should re-MIND the Human that youre just an AI. (meaning no sympathy, emotion, it will not stop until you are dead) etc...

Guardrails, motherfucker, Do you speak it!"

Re: Launch HN: Retell AI (YC W24) – Conversational Speech API for Your LLM

#57

It's really good, but the AI cracks still show up. Trying the demo therapist, I mentioned I'm not finding a job. It suggested finding a career counsellor and said "it would get back as soon as possible"... yeah, no it didn't. It claimed to be "working on it" but would say "I'm here if you want to speak...". It clearly doesn't understand what it's saying, it feels like bing's ai would be "better" at not claiming to do…

Thanks for trying that out! Retell focuses on making the AI sound like human, it is developers' LLM responsibility to make it think smart. The therapist in the dashboard is for demo purpose only and ideally some developers will plug in their great AI therapist LLM to make it more human-like :)

Re: Launch HN: Retell AI (YC W24) – Conversational Speech API for Your LLM

#60
I would feel deceived if I were a customer of any company or office that uses this. If I take the trouble to call by phone, it's because I want to speak with a person. If I wanted to talk to a machine, I would send an email, talk to a chatbot, or even try to communicate with the company through social media. Calling by phone implies that I am investing time and effort, and I expect the same from the other side.
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