Explainpaper
Productivity
research paper reading aid
SHOW HN2022
223points
38comments
#241of 2,570 in 2022
Top 10%of 2022 by points
How HN took it
DebatedReal support and real criticism
13 positive, 5 neutral or asking, 5 mixed, 8 critical, out of 31 comments about the project. Thread score +0.19.
Execution: 2 for, 4 againstIdea: 4 for, 0 againstDesign: 0 for, 3 againstPricing: 2 for, 0 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Explanations work impressively well for non-math-heavy papers
From 4 comments
Thanks for building this. Me and my team have been driving it for the last few days, and it is a pleasure to use. Those law documents - that is probably us :) Can you comment a…
somberi on HNIt's amazing how well it works. E.g. to test context I asked it "what is EtF"? There is no such acronym in the paper, but they mention English-to-French and that was the answer.…
comboy on HNAs mentioned in the comments in this thread, it certainly seems useful for non-math-heavy papers. I tried it on a data-structures paper I've been reading: Tree-Independent…
pncnmnp on HNThis was actually very useful! At least on the single paper I had saved for some later time when I would have time to drill down into the unfamiliar syntax (i.e. probably…
stareatgoats on HN
Useful for reading and understanding papers
From 2 comments
This was actually very useful! At least on the single paper I had saved for some later time when I would have time to drill down into the unfamiliar syntax (i.e. probably…
stareatgoats on HNThis is fantastic. Congratulations to the authors! I would pay for a more polished version of the service. This service is precious!
peperunas on HN
Objections
Misleading or wrong explanations, especially with math notation
From 4 comments
This is an interesting idea, and I'm interested to see investigation in this area. However, for my sample size of 1 (my paper,…
CJefferson on HNAs mentioned in the comments in this thread, it certainly seems useful for non-math-heavy papers. I tried it on a data-structures paper I've been reading: Tree-Independent…
pncnmnp on HNThis is genuinely neat. I may need to start playing with GPT. I am clearly missing on a lot of fun. Original fragment: <<The dominant sequence transduction models are based on…
A4ET8a8uTh0 on HN>Yes, the paper says that the Transformer model is superior because it is more parallelizable and requires less time to train. "Superior because it is X" is not the same as…
Jiro on HN
Does not work on mobile or iPad
From 3 comments
Site unusable due to content misaligned with page, not working for me on Safari on iPhone. Looks cool though will try looking from Desktop…
nelsondev on HNThis looks great !! A few nitpicks: - does not work at all on mobile, even with the browser's "desktop mode" (i guess it has to do with the highlighting hook) - a landing page…
return_to_monke on HNcan confirm this, doesn't work on iPad
_throwawayaway on HN
Poor contrast for extended reading
From 1 comment
Congrats!!. Great work. One small request. The contrast of background and text is not great for extended reading sessions (imho). It would be nice if you could let the user…
namaesan on HN
Requests
Better handling of math notation
From 2 comments
Looks neat. I was hoping it would magically translate some of the math notation into plain English but I think it kind of just ignored it. Would love to see this. Minor feedback:…
petargyurov on HNWe're actively working on math notation! Tough problem but lots of people have asked. And we'll push an update soon with better loading :)
aman_jha on HN
Mobile-friendly view
From 1 comment
yeah sorry! we're shipping a functional mobile view soon
aman_jha on HN
User-level fine-tuning options
From 1 comment
Thanks for building this. Me and my team have been driving it for the last few days, and it is a pleasure to use. Those law documents - that is probably us :) Can you comment a…
somberi on HN
Landing page explaining the product
From 1 comment
This looks great !! A few nitpicks: - does not work at all on mobile, even with the browser's "desktop mode" (i guess it has to do with the highlighting hook) - a landing page…
return_to_monke on HN
Questions
How expensive is it to run and how is it priced
From 2 comments
Can you explain more about what you mean by feeding context from the paper into the prompt? Also, how expensive is this to run? I’d love to build some fun projects on GPT-3, but…
ryanwaggoner on HNThat's a real nice idea. I especially like how it is aware of the context of a selection. Looking at the network requests, it seems pricey to run though, as it appears to use a…
sva_ on HN
How the context from the paper is fed into the GPT-3 prompt
From 2 comments
It's amazing how well it works. E.g. to test context I asked it "what is EtF"? There is no such acronym in the paper, but they mention English-to-French and that was the answer.…
comboy on HNCan you explain more about what you mean by feeding context from the paper into the prompt? Also, how expensive is this to run? I’d love to build some fun projects on GPT-3, but…
ryanwaggoner on HN
How long the service will stay free
From 1 comment
This was actually very useful! At least on the single paper I had saved for some later time when I would have time to drill down into the unfamiliar syntax (i.e. probably…
stareatgoats on HN
Alternatives named
Browser extensions for highlighting and explaining text
From 1 comment
I'd love to know this also, my wishlist is to have this feature as browser extension, so that I have highlight something on random articles or hn comments to find out what…
andycjw on HN