Goodbye Faceless Algorithms, Hello Hachi!

It's no secret that boredom and loneliness is an epidemic. The average American spends 3 hours a day scrolling through online contents — usually solo.

What's more, your content stream is controlled by a faceless "algorithm" that feeds you content over which you have very little control or knowledge.

I know this game inside out. I was one of the Google Brain Researchers who worked on the world's most popular YouTube AI engine.

We built this with good intent: to surface better content to users and keep them engaged - and it worked!

However, there's one important problem: there exists only one algorithm for everyone in the world. Users have no control over what information they see, and creators have to tailor their content to "game" the algorithm.

Let's be real, no one's a fan of this singular, faceless algorithm. That's why I'm building something new, with the belief that people should be able to choose how they discover information, and be able to put a face to a name.

I'm excited to announce that we are working on Hachi — unique personas that help you search for information, whether it's text, images, or videos. With Hachi, you will be able to:

• Choose your muse. Just like how you choose your friends, you also choose which Hachi you want to spend time with. Imagine having one Hachi for #vanlife, another for the latest Taylor and Travis gossip, and another for minecraft.
• Stay Trendy. Hachis are constantly discovering new creators and content that are trending based on your common interests.
• Never Alone: Hachis explore with you, share their own insights, and are ready to chat anytime you would like to.

To make this a reality, my co-founder Nancy and I have been hard at work on building out Hachi in the last few months. If this sounds interesting to you, please join our mailing list and our discord community.

We'd love to hear your early thoughts and feedback!

- Jing Conan Wang