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Personal Encyclopedias

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101–110 of 197 posts

Re: Personal Encyclopedias

#101
post #2

That sounds like a really cool project and a really interesting way to preserve family history. I feel like i don't know how to emotionally react to the AI part of this story. To begin with, it is fundamentally cool we have technology like that. At the same time it felt bittersweet, like an artisan being put out of business by the factory. The first part of the story felt like much of the love was in constructing eve…

thank you :)

I understand the bittersweet feeling because I did all the editorial work for the wedding page and the first few others and I did feel like a historian trying to connect the dots after stumbling into some primary/secondary materials and spending a couple months doing all the editorial work

after I began experimenting with agents, it sped up my process that otherwise would've taken many more months for every page given that the kinds of data sources also increased over time

I did still spend significant amounts of time like a wikipedia contributor would deciding on what to keep, enhance or delete from the page based on my own personal preferences and what I was comfortable with seeing on the page

the dystopic feeling is also fair and unsettling, I think this ironically also made me realize how important safeguarding my personal data is, we leave digital trails of ourselves everywhere so a powerful agent can string them together to create a story of who you are

Re: Personal Encyclopedias

#102
I love the idea.

Each year I have the wife take curated photos from our shared accounts with an overview of the event photographed.

This is then bound into a 1/2 inch book with 50 pages. We now have a dozen years of annualized memories that we can pass around with physical access.

She has done this for others with great success. The personal touches make it well worth what she charges.

Re: Personal Encyclopedias

#103

Overall this is a neat result, and the interviews are a nice part of the process. I've tried to (on occasion) make a habit of asking about more (mundane) details from my elders. But knowing what to do with that data... And that brings me to my point. I've been thinking a lot lately about digital legacy. When I was a kid, it was neat to see photo books that showed my parents as kids, living their lives, having fun. Th…

Looking/thinking about this and all the digital photos that are spread across multiple phones and accounts led me to My Family Archive. I haven’t pursued it yet, but they seem to have thought about some of this.

Re: Personal Encyclopedias

#104

A good story I stopped reading when it became agentic. The product naming is becoming harassment. When it's in the title, at least we know. When it's in the intro, we know what we are getting into. What really pinch is that this project could have easily been done with some scripting, open sourced, and anyone could do it at zero cost, with total privacy.

There is no possible way some light scripting could cross reference data from pictures (not the metadata, the actual pictures) with web information, bank information and personal anecdotes.

Re: Personal Encyclopedias

#105
post #24

I do something similar with my wife; at the start of every year we take around 50 sheets of paper and bind them into a little notebook. The binding cloth we use is usually a combination of clothes that tore, fell into abject disrepair the previous year. She then finds little things (ex: matchbox from a restaurant we visited and loved) and decorates it. Throughout the year we keep writing in it, things we learnt, disc…

I do something similar with a journal. I bought a little Instax printer recently so I can still use my phone as a camera but print out the pictures and stick them in it.

I was thinking the other day I need to go back to a physical recipe book too. I don't cook that many different things that I need to reference it for, but there was a charm in my old one of remembering the best recipes were the ones covered in spilled ingredients and filled with marginalia.

Re: Personal Encyclopedias

#106
Fascinating idea! So wish I had parents and grands around so I could record all the old family stories that were told over the years. If you readers take no other action after reading this post, start recording your own oral history/stories; yours, parents, kids, friends, etc.

Re: Personal Encyclopedias

#108
post #2

That sounds like a really cool project and a really interesting way to preserve family history. I feel like i don't know how to emotionally react to the AI part of this story. To begin with, it is fundamentally cool we have technology like that. At the same time it felt bittersweet, like an artisan being put out of business by the factory. The first part of the story felt like much of the love was in constructing eve…

why is there need for an emotional reaction? It's just a tool. Philosophically, it's no different than using photoshop to touch up old photos. It's just a more "high-tech" version.

Re: Personal Encyclopedias

#109
post #86

> So I started pointing Claude Code at other data exports. My Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp archives held around 100k messages and a couple thousand voice notes exchanged with close friends over a decade. > The model traced the arc of our friendships through the messages, pulled out the life episodes we had talked each other through, and wove them into multiple pages that read like it was written by someone who k…

Yes, though unless you used non-mainstream platforms, all messages are already on the servers of Meta or Google. Not sure how much worse Anthropic is.

Re: Personal Encyclopedias

#110
post #24

I do something similar with my wife; at the start of every year we take around 50 sheets of paper and bind them into a little notebook. The binding cloth we use is usually a combination of clothes that tore, fell into abject disrepair the previous year. She then finds little things (ex: matchbox from a restaurant we visited and loved) and decorates it. Throughout the year we keep writing in it, things we learnt, disc…

that is beautiful. and inspirational. although I know that I don't have anywhere near enough energy to carry through on this kind of thing!

It only takes a little bit of energy once a day (or per week if you haven't realized yet how eventful your life actually is). The highest energy first day making it is a fun date with your spouse, or parent child time if you are separated.
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