Show HN: I built TikTok but for studying with quizzes from your own notes

[tbihl]

I played with this a while after uploading one pdf chapter from the textbook I teach out of. The chapter covers text segment and stack dissection of simple C programs, as in rudimentary reverse engineering.

I was happy with many of the flash cards, but I struggle with the idea of encouraging my students to try it because I got 2 or 3 bad cards in the span of about 5 minutes. One tried to ask about an analogy in the text, but it reverse the order, butchering its meaning. One stated hat GDB would be useful for exploring logic and syntax, but not runtime, errors. And another posed a distinction without a difference, which would result in a lot of confused students and, consequently, busier office hours.

[tmpz22]

As a student I've been researching the use of AI for various tasks and have come to the initial conclusion that AI improves quantity but not quality such that a student is almost always better off spending an extra 30-60 minutes producing materials themselves.

A lot of tasks like note taking are essential to knowledge retention such that even supplementing notes with AI generated summaries creates clear tradeoffs that personally I choose to avoid.

I'm more curious in AI use by teachers to produce better media for student consumption, paired with tools like Figma, Adobe, Microsoft office, and other tools. In my experience teachers are forced to produce a lot of content, akin to content creators, without the proper incentives, quality controls, or training. I think AI can help there.

I think when paired with great tools, like Figma, then the quality/quantity trade-off of AI is changed. Perhaps there is a lesson there that can eventually be realized by students, but I haven't seen it yet.

[leohonexus]

Fun fact: The founder of TikTok Alex Zhu worked on an education app but failed so miserably he decided to pivot to musical.ly, which later became TikTok.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7y971yL5dE

[preetramsha]

I didn't know that. thanks for sharing

[smt88]

I assume this is a generic LLM + RAG, so you can't prevent hallucinations and there's a chance (which gets better as the subject gets more complex) that the study materials will be wrong.

And anyway, creating flash cards is a huge study booster by itself. It doesn't make sense to automate that step away.

[starfezzy]

It makes a ton of sense. I've been doing my own custom version of this for the past year and it's a HUGE shift in studying efficiency.

- LLMs are getting better. That's a reality LLM haters need to contend with. The versions that didn't solve your one issue perfectly 2 years ago simply aren't in the rotation any longer. A major release with significant improvements is a nearly monthly occurrence. - I don't know how to convince anyone of this, but the hallucinations have literally zero impact. Not only are they rare and getting rarer, but because you can always spot a hallucination you learn to ignore them. - As someone who's a huge fan of flashcards, you're wrong that this is worse than making your own cards. Instead of spending hours and hours making cards, those hours are spent actively engaging with and absorbing more material.

I can't speak to OP's product, but with my system it's the closest thing I'm aware of to downloading information directly into the brain.

[wordpad25]

Some ANKI flash card sets sell for thousands of dollars, so, clearly, there is demand

[severine]

Come to think of it, TikTok is like Anki for social cues.

[AnEro]

true but tiktok is anki in reverse, it learns you

[cyberflame1337]

I like this concept, but I am concerned about copyrights. Public information might not be as big of a deal as a textbook or closed PDFs. What happens to the data after?

[preetramsha]

I am encouraging people to insert their own custom notes. but even if they add textbooks or anything I think it will be fine as they are not distributing the data and just learning for their own in a fun way

[mtrovo]

That's a really neat idea. Now I really need to hear them read by the AI-generated narration from TikTok.

[preetramsha]

that's a good idea I will look into making it. thanks and please let me know if you have any other recommendation.

[its_down_again]

Hey it's working great! Small nitpicks while I'm testing on my macbook + chrome. - It can be easy to "miss" the next card because scrolling feels really fast - I accidentally uploaded the same files twice, but can't figure out how to delete the duplicates.

[preetramsha]

please tell me all the nitpicks so I can improve. also this is just an MPV so deleting files will be added in future

[mandeepj]

What’s the purpose of quick quiz? I answered Paris fro “ What's the capital of France?”; nothing happened afterwards. I was using mobile chrome.

Anyway, congratulations on your launch.

[preetramsha]

it's just a demo. you can create a subject and then insert your study materials then you can quizzes will be generated which you can scroll like tiktok but in this you are actually learning

[mimischi]

I think it’s a demo of the interface and nothing more

[iJohnDoe]

Really cool idea! Nicely done.

Excited to give it a try.

[preetramsha]

Thank you for the compliment. Please try and let me know if you have any improvement suggestions

[koinedad]

Maybe having AI generated TikTok-like people read your AI generated flash cards to you…

[preetramsha]

that is an amazing idea. will be added soon