HACKER Q&A
📣 leobg

A “GitHub Copilot” for Writing?


Does something like that exist? Basically, a tool that watches everything you type. And then offers auto completion based on your most used patterns. An auto generating, auto updating snippet library, so to speak.

Perhaps working like auto complete in Gmail, but based not on phrases that are common across a wide user base, but only on your own, personal writing. And, of course, running not in the cloud, but on your own computer, so it can be used for sensitive content.

Is there some thing that exists? If it doesn’t exist, would you want it to?

  👤 eimrine Accepted Answer ✓
I would not want that service even if it doesn't send anything. What I want is advanced grammar and orphography check for those whose English is not a mother language. I haven't use Copilot but the helplessness of modern grammar checking tells me that this kind of software is yet to be a decent helper.
👤 d--b
It already exists. Search for “AI for creative writing”.

Training suggestions based on the users’ own writing is going to restrict your user base to people who already have written extensively (less inclined to need help). And actually it will limit their expressivity instead of expanding it.

I’d think that people don’t really care if it runs in the cloud (they trust the cloud with their emails…).

Despite the “echo chamber” critics that are valid, this is still a good idea. Like a personal writing practice.

Obviously not great if your goal is to be truly creative

👤 muzani
There's tons of them out there. It's like the To Do List or Notes app of NLP/AI. You'll find many in the Show HN segment too.

Is there a good one? Just like notetaking tools, most do something but fall short. I think we'll see a few commercial tier ones within 3 years though.