‘Most criticisms of ChatGPTstyle AIs is that they can come back with answers where they ‘hallucinate’, make stuff up in other words, ’says Chris Painter of exciting new West Cork company Headstarter.
The big difference with his AI service Mycroft Ireland is that instead of acting like an all-knowing God, it acts like an ultra-efficient librarian working at the speed of light.
‘When you ask a question on, say, how to make a will in Ireland, Mycroft Ireland comes back with an answer based along the lines of: these are the passages that are relevant and that I have used to produce this answer.’
In a world where the truth is increasingly difficult to find, this is a game changer in terms of trustworthiness.
Run from his base at Rineen near Union Hall, the service is free to use for the general public and Chris is encouraging people to use it now to find answers to all these kinds of questions.
The coverage is wide as Mycroft Ireland fashions answers from public documents from the citizensinfo.ie, cro.ie and revenue.ie websites, along with legal acts.
As for Chris and his family, it was a combination of pushing and pulling that brought him here from his native English West Country.
‘I’ve always loved West Cork,’ he says. ‘It’s very like the West Country and I’ve sailed around these parts for years… When Brexit came, however, I was advised that in order to continue what I was doing in AI research, I would need to be in Europe and the only place in Europe that I could move to was Ireland. So not only was I drawn to West Cork, I was also pushed from England!’
England’s loss is West Cork’s gain, it seems. The service is fully live and free so people can get try it out now at headstarter.pro
Chris Painter founder of Headstarter.
