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I want ChatGPT for Family.

The free version gets a lot of use around here but the most powerful feature is the ability to search the web, which is only available to paid users. I pay $20/month for myself and I’d happily pay a bit more for the whole family, but not $20/month per person - it adds up. Family members end up asking to borrow my phone a lot to use it.

Give me a 3-4 person plan that costs $30-$40/month. You’re leaving money on the table!



At Kagi we plan to offer this for $20/mo and 6 family members included. You get both paid search (much better than openai bing) + AI (gpt-3.5-turbo/claude-instant). If you need gpt-4 it will be an optional $15/mo upgrade per family member.


This is not a comment on the Kagi service, but more a comment on transitions in general. I have tried Kagi and I think it's great. I really want to use Kagi. I want to support Kagi. I have a mental stickynote that says 'start using Kagi on everything'. Every time I sit down to do some tasks it just falls to the bottom of the to-do pile because I feel like there's so many devices I now need to go through and update. Google really has a powerful advantage by bundling search in with the browser product. Isn't that what got microsoft into anti-trust trouble? How is it allowed?


Start with your most used devices, I'm guessing your phone and your main computer. Then the others will slowly follow. Once I switched my phone's default search to Kagi, it made a huge difference because I search a lot more while being on the go and being able to get good, no-spam, no-ads filled search results can be an amazing experience.


I ran into this same issue. Finally took until Christmas break to have the mental space available. Switched to Firefox + Kagi, and very happy that I did.


I wasn't able to quickly find an answer: can you use it also in private browsing mode on Firefox? I basically only use private Firefox browsing both on mobile and desktop.


They give you a unique URL associated with your account that you can use without manually logging in. It does somewhat defeat the purpose of private browsing mode depending on what you're using it for though.


I've been playing around with the assistant stuff and adding !expert to my searches to see what the LLM spits out first as a quick check. I'd love if I could get my custom assistant to work - sounds like a lot of fun to be had there.


is gpt-3.5-turbo/claude-instant better than the model that free tier of chatgpt uses? FWIW, from my testing dolphin-2.5-mixtral-8x7b was clearly better than free tier chatgpt.


We are closely following but with price of the models going down so rapidly it is really hard to justify capital investement in infra/people to maintain own stack globally at production quality (at this moment, will probably make a difference at scale larger than where Kagi is today).


Nice, I'm looking forward to that! You guys have some pretty outstanding AI chops going. I've been really impressed!


out of curiosity, do you cap the trial accounts anyhow? First time I'm trying Kagi, and it's been one minute+ and it is still haven't started showing "Results" (when using `!code`). Just in case you do cap, probably not the best approach if you want to attract people!

update: it actually timed out with no result/explanation.


Code is the one I actually haven't tried. In general though they do cap trials but it's by number of requests, and it will either allow you or not, so that sounds like a bug


Sounds great. Will that plan also have access to the Search API which is currently restricted to Teams plans?


I haven't found the web search feature particularly useful or helpful. Far too many sites are blocking the ChatGPT bot. I also find that ChatGPT isn't getting any better search results that I would if I searched for something myself. Quality of the results varies a lot too, and ChatGPT doesn't really seem to be able to distinguish between high quality content and not so high quality content.

For software development I find that Phind is pretty good at combining search results with GPT-4 in a way that increases the quality of the result.

Maybe OpenAI can convince the Bing team to index everything using their embeddings. If ChatGPT could also read the text directly from Bind instead of having to "surf the web" it would be able to consume several search results at the same time. In the future I could even see Bing et al. running an LLM over all text when indexing a page to extract info and stats like a summary, keywords, truthfulness, usefulness, etc.


Same experience. 90% of the time I ask it to summarize something, it can't because it's blocked. At least it has the decency to tell me that it's blocked rather than just failing (which is what Kagi does. Love Kagi, but that's a minor improvement they could make).

This is where I suspect Bard is going to be an absolute beast of a product. Ability to quickly and thoroughly consume a bunch of hits and find the best and summarize and such is something uniquely able for Google (and increasingly, Kagi)


I feel that LLMs have the potential to reorganize the web. Instead of being ad sponsored, raw, high quality data will be priced and aggregated.


A workaround for this is to print the site as a pdf and upload it to GPT.


ChatGPT's web search is interminably slow and I've added to my custom prompt to not do web searches unless explicitly asked. However, I'd give Perplexity.ai a try - I've found it to be incredibly fast and useful (funnily enough, they largely also use Bing for search retrieval results) and if you pay for Pro (which I do now), you can also use GPT-4 for generating responses.


I also had some good experience woth default free version of phind. I was facing a issue in a python framework, which turned out to be a bug. Phind was able to pinpoint the github discussion where the issue was raised and also suggested workaround code example based on the github issue. No other free AI tools were able to do this.


I have a custom GPT for telling my 3 year old bedtime stories. It's super cute to listen to the two of them collaborate back and forth where my kid will add new characters (friends from school, or stuffed animals) and new wacky twists to their adventures, and the storyteller GPT will come up with a new revised version.

It would be pretty rad if she could just have the app on her tablet with a family plan. She doesn't use it quite enough to justify getting her own subscription, but especially if we could share GPTs across devices, so she gets the ones I make for her, but doesn't get flooded with my work or research related GPTs.


Oh, how does your 3 year old interact with GPT?

BTW. I read once some person made automated generation of bed time stories (with childrens as the main characters) for his children using open AI API and speakers - I was quite amazed (not a thing I would do, but nice usage for gpt).


There's pretty good voice input for chat gpt built into the iOS app.


The ChatGPT app has a button for voice2voice.


ummm how do i get this? i've got a 5, 3, and 1 year old and would love this


We just do it from the ChatGPT app on Android.


I'm certain that they will soon release anything that promises more subscriptions. ChatGPT for Family, ChatGPT for Gov, and so on...


ChatGPT for Kids™


“The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age


The more I think of it the more I realize how enormous an impact this could have


Can't wait for my 5 year old to start a sentence with "However, it's important to note that ..." ^^


If he starts with “As an AI language model…” then you should really start to worry


You mean the children grow up loving the GPT more than their parents?


They already love their TV, GameBoy and smart phone more than their parents.

(Deliberately using anachronistic examples here. The issue has been with us for a while.)


Hit me up so we can work on it :)


There seems to be a plethora of somewhat ChatGPT competitive alternatives that does search the web at this point though. Maybe try phind.com?

(Although I haven't yet myself tried any alternative that is clearly on par with ChatGPT 4)


Can't you use the same account on multiple phones though? I thought this is a no brainer.


This is probably correct but I'd prefer that family don't read the conversations I've had, as even if I'm not saying anything too private, it feels too intrusive (it'd be a bit like reading my inner thoughts).


It's interesting that you're so trusting of strangers knowing your inner thoughts (OpenAI) but not your family


How could I look my wife in the eye, or expect my kids to grow up happy, if they knew their dad doesn't know how to use a regex to detect emojis in a string?


I hope there is more going on behind those eyes than not being a regex expert


I don't want my family to know I spent 3 hours chatting about the Holy Roman Empire.


What would change if they knew?


Why the questions? It is no one else's business why they want that level of privacy. Is it your intent to convince them that they don't need privacy?


> Is it your intent to convince them that they don't need privacy?

Quite the opposite actually. My intent is to shed light on the fact that sharing information with OpenAI is not private. And you should not do that with information that you wouldn't even share with people you trust.


> Quite the opposite actually. My intent is to shed light on the fact that sharing information with OpenAI is not private. And you should not do that with information that you wouldn't even share with people you trust.

I'm not OP, but I think you're missing the point.

Privacy and trust isn't really a 1D gradient, it's probably planar or even spatial if anything.

Personally I'd be more willing to trust OpenAI with certain conversations because the blowback if it leaves their control is different than if I have that same conversation with my best friend and it leaves my best friend's control. The same premise underlies how patients can choose who to disclose their own health matters to, or choose who their providers can disclose to.

Same reason behind why someone may be willing to post a relationship situation to r/relationship_advice and yet not talk about the same thing with family and friends.


> Same reason behind why someone may be willing to post a relationship situation to r/relationship_advice and yet not talk about the same thing with family and friends.

I ask that you consider the people who use Reddit and the people who run Reddit independently. The people who use Reddit are not in a position of power over someone who asks for advice. The people who run Reddit on the other hand, are in a position of power to be able to emotionally manipulate the person who asked for advice. They can show you emotionally manipulative posts to keep your attention for longer. They can promote your post among people who are likely to respond in ways that keep you coming back.

OpenAI has a similar position of power. That's why you shouldn't trust people at either of those companies with your private thoughts.


You're assuming power comes with an assumed guarantee of use. OpenAI has vast amounts of power with the data they're collecting, but the likelihood of OpenAI using it against any individual is small enough that an individual could consider it to be outside their threat model (I'm speaking using security language, but I doubt most people go so far as to threat model these interactions; it's mostly intuitive at this point).

Your family has limited power in the grand scheme of things, but the likelihood that they may leverage what power you give them over you is much higher.

The IRS has vast power and is likely to use it against you, hence why tax fraud is usually a bad idea.

Hence "planar" rather than linear.


> OpenAI has vast amounts of power with the data they're collecting, but the likelihood of OpenAI using it against any individual is small enough that an individual could consider it to be outside their threat model

I think your use of the word "individual" is a bit weird here. I absolutely find it likely that OpenAI is doing individualized manipulation against everyone who uses their systems. Maybe this would be more obvious if you replace OpenAI with something like Facebook or Youtube in your head.

Just because they are using their power on many individuals doesn't mean that they are not using their power against you too.


> I think your use of the word "individual" is a bit weird here. I absolutely find it likely that OpenAI is doing individualized manipulation against everyone who uses their systems. Maybe this would be more obvious if you replace OpenAI with something like Facebook or Youtube in your head.

> Just because they are using their power on many individuals doesn't mean that they are not using their power against you too.

Yeah but at this point you're identifying individual risks and grasping at straws to justify manipulating* everyone's threat model. You can use that as your own justification, but everyone manages their own personal tolerance for different categories of risks differently.

*Also, considering the published definition of manipulation is "to control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means especially to one's own advantage," I think saying that "OpenAI is doing individualized manipulation against everyone who uses their systems" is an overreach that requires strong evidence. It's one thing if companies use dark UX patterns to encourage product spend, but I don't believe (from what I know) that OpenAI is at a point where they can intake the necessary data both from past prompt history and from other sites to do the personalized, individualized manipulation across future prompts and responses that you're suggesting they're likely doing.

Considering your latest comment, I'm not sure this discussion is receiving the good faith it deserves anymore. We can part ways, it's fine.


Too much discussion about the Holy Roman Empire over dinner? People talk to get things of their mind sometimes, not the infinite pursuit of conversation.


My point was not that they should talk about the Holy Roman Empire with their family, but that they shouldn't share information with strangers that they wouldn't share with their family.

If you don't want your family to know something, you shouldn't tell it to OpenAI either.


> If you don't want your family to know something, you shouldn't tell it to OpenAI either.

Yeah, I think this is an over reduction of personal privacy models, but can you tell me why you believe this?


The reason you wouldn't say something to someone is because you are afraid of the power that you give people along with that knowledge.

Your family is in a a position of power, which is why it can be scary to share information with them. People at OpenAI are also at a position of power, but people who use their services seem to forget that, since they're talking to them through a computer that automatically responds.


Converging threads here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38956734

tldr: power (or if you want, impact) is the linear dimension, likelihood adds a second dimension to the plane of trust.


In practice, likelyhood directly correlates with power. Perhaps there is causation (power corrupts?)


Some people are more responsible than others.

For example, one's spouse typically has a lot of power, but hopefully a low likelihood in practice.


I need data on that. I haven't seen that in practice.


This is silly. It's not like OpenAI is going to find your family's contact info, then personally contact them and show them what you've been talking about with ChatGPT. It's just like another post here comparing this to writing a post on /r/relationshipadvice with very personal relationship details: the family members are extremely unlikely to ever see that post, the post is under a pseudonym (and probably a throwaway too), and the likelihood that someone is going to figure out the identity of the poster and seek out their family members to show the post to them is astronomical.


They would know that it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. Discuss.


Is that truly interesting? OP does not have to care about what AI think of him. OP does notnhave to care about accidentally offending or hurting AI either. Open does nor have to care about whether AI finds him silly or whatever.

Normal humans care about all of those with their families.


AI is a tool controlled by people. In this case, people who are not OP.


So? That doesn't invalidate the point of the comment you replied to.

To give another example: The cashier at the supermarket knows when I'm buying condoms, but that doesn't mean I want to tell my parents.

And neither would I want to know as a parent, when or whether my kids order bondage gear on Amazon.

It's not just about my information going to other people, but also keeping certain information of other people from reaching me.


Fine then. You don't want to find out your family the love you have for Roman empire. But you are a programmer, yes? So make an app that's just a wrapper for ChatGPT API's you're paying for and distribute that to your family phones. They'll use your OpenAI API key and each will have their own little ChatGPT 4 to query to. Have fun.


As a general rule, I don’t share account access. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve made an exception to that rule and it was always for something relatively benign like Spotify. Privacy isn’t the only reason to avoid sharing, either.

I don’t even like that when my family picks up the remote, Apple TV assumes it’s me using the TV. They watch something and mess up my Up Next history and recommendations. I wish it supported using a PIN. I’ve thought about getting rid of the remote to force everyone to use their phone as a remote, because then it detects who is using it and automatically switches accounts. But that means everyone has to have an iPhone and have their phone charged, etc. Getting rid of the remote just for my convenience seems too inconsiderate.


Can't you just share the login details?


Sharing the same space and turning off/on the custom instructions is also very annoying.


Agreed on the most powerful feature is the ability to search the web. This feature single-handedly makes ChatGPT a very potent Google search alternative but without the dreaded advertisements.


Bing's version can search the web.


I guarantee you they aren't leaving money on the table. they're running the same techno capitalist playbook.

they want you hooked on apps, API, etc, before the real costs are brought in. they likely should be charging anywhere from 50-100$ depending on hours




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