I've been recording to myself voice notes for years. Until now they've seemingly been near-read-only. The friction for recording them is often low (in settings where I can speak freely) but getting the information out of them has been difficult.
I'm now writing software to help me quickly get information out of the voice notes. So they'll be useful to me too, not just to future historians who happen upon my hard drive. I would not be able to devote the time to this without AI, even though most of the code and all the architecture is my own.
On occasion I've used Otter or Whisper with some success.
Please let me know if you open source any of your work.
Do you transfer the files to your computer? Do you ever/often listen on the VoiceTracker? How do others respond to you making recordings? Do you organise the recording files into folders? Use filesystem tags (KDE Dolphin, etc) or symlinks? Ever have files on the computer that you needed when you're out (with the phone)?
How well do Otter and Whisper transcribe? Do you edit the transcriptions? How do you store the transcriptions? Do you ever search them? Do you store additional notes alongside the transcriptions and audio files?
Do you ever bookmark specific files? Specific timestamps in files? How long is your typical voice recording? How long are the 98th percentile long ones? How many recordings do you produce on average (per day, week, month)? Do you ever erase recordings?
What type of recordings? Reminders of things that are time sensitive (e.g. appointment dates)? Things for long-term archival (e.g. records of automotive maintenance)? Use it to assist in habit changing (recording diet) or mental health?
Yes, I intend to place the project on GitHub, probably GPL. Though I might consider MIT, I would actually love if somebody took off with it and made a business. I'd be a customer!
Do what you think is best of course, but is a very bad recommendation for those who have lost their jobs and are unlikely to find another in software any time soon (if ever).
I said a few years ago when people were still saying I was overreacting and AI wouldn't take jobs, people need to reskill ASAP. If you've lost your job, learn how to paint walls or lay carpet before your emergency fund is up. In the unlikely event you find another software job while you're training, then great, if not you have a fall back.
Remember you're highly unlikely to make any serious money out of a bootstrapped startup. Statistically we know significantly fewer than than 1% of bootstrapped startups make money, let alone become viable replacements for a full-time income.
Don't be stupid – especially if you have a family depending on you.
During the rise of the net, there were unexplored green fields everywhere. You could make easy bank from ads. You didn't need an office or a factory to start a company (which was more or less a requirement previously). So the idea of a bootstrapped startup was new, but seemed somewhat obvious if you were paying attention.
Now? Everyone has LLMs and can see a bit into the future. Lots of these companies will bubble up and either fold or get acquired. A few will unicorn. But the key point remains: if you are unemployed or have some time and build something functional on this new stack, your value as an employee will be much higher in the future.
Don't sacrifice what you can't, but I think there may be a softer landing for failed AI founders in the near future.
And by that, I mean corps will make poor decisions that will be negative for thought workers while never really threatening executive compensation.
I see this latest one somewhat like TFA author: this is a HUGE opportunity for intelligent, motivated builders. If our jobs are at risk now or have already been lost, then we might as well take this time to make some of the things we have thought about making before but were too busy to do (or too fatigued).
In the process, we may not only develop nice incomes that are independent of PHB decisions, but some will even build things that these same companies will later want to buy for $$$.