Show HN: Academa – Long-form STEM lecture videos generated by LLMs

Hi HN, we are Sina Atalay and Abdullah Geduk, co-founders of Academa. We are both PhD students.

We thought: what if lecture videos were written as code and compiled into video using computer graphics and TTS?

Then LLMs could write them, and lectures could be fixed with code edits instead of video production.

On correctness: LLMs may make mistakes. But these videos are code sitting in our repository, and we can maintain them. Every report and review becomes a fix in the source, and everyone who watches after that gets the corrected lecture. Every recorded lecture on the internet is stuck with its mistakes. Ours will continuously improve.

Each video also comes with an AI chat that understands everything said and shown in the lecture.

There is a longer write-up at the bottom of the page.

Happy to answer any questions.

Show HN: Academa – Long-form STEM lecture videos generated by LLMs
academa.ai

Claude Opus 5, with high thinking, generates the video in a single shot.

The one that asks questions at the beginning is Gemini Flash 3.7.

There are misplaced verbal emphasis and non-emphasis. And unfortunately these happen at the crucial moments. Makes it very hard to follow.

> On correctness: LLMs may make mistakes. But these videos are code sitting in our repository, and we can maintain them. Every report and review becomes a fix in the source, and everyone who watches after that gets the corrected lecture. Every recorded lecture on the internet is stuck with its mistakes. Ours will continuously improve.

Models change. Models are unpredictable. The assumption that we can constrain them between prompt bumpers has not been proven and seems unlikely to be provable given how these model works.

Beyond that, how do you know if the reports and reviews are even correct? Are you just gonna rely on the kindness of others to provide that value? Of all things that LLM’s have killed, I’m pretty sure the open sharing of knowledge and understanding are the first on the chopping block. I don’t care whether or not you’re pro or anti LLM, publishing knowledge for reputation is now a dead end for anyone wanting to make a living.

Wrapping others’ knowledge in a black box that may or may not accurately represent that knowledge is basically enshitification on steroids. The reason we hold folks like Lovelace, Sagan, or Feynman in high regard is because they weren’t wrong when they shared their understanding and knowledge.

But the best of luck to everyone involved! I’m sure everything will work out!

This is a great idea. I find LLMs to be a good teacher, though I've primarily interacted with them through text.

I'm curious, what are the economics of producing this longer form content?