269 comments

  • bensyverson 3 days ago ago

    This idea reads like a joke, but there's something to it.

    One feature request: In addition to high-level milestones, it would be cool if a partially-funded project would generate a public, highly detailed implementation plan.

    Also, IANAL but MIT is still a license with a copyright holder. I don't think saying "it's MIT, we all own it" is defensible. The courts might view all this code as public domain.

    • pjc50 2 days ago ago

      I wonder why people are more eager to pool money to pay a corporate-owned computer to build things than to the actual humans who have been building open source for decades? Much of which has ended up in the training set?

      • nullbio 2 days ago ago

        Exactly. This screams crowdfunding for AI labs. Who made this? Someone at Anthropic?

      • eptcyka 2 days ago ago

        Humans are more expensive.

        • delijati 2 days ago ago

          Humans can also use LLM's even a local LLM

          • vntok 2 days ago ago

            That's even more expensive.

      • KeplerBoy 2 days ago ago

        LLM output is just very predictable. If you spend 200$ on that /goal you will get some output. It may or may not work perfectly, but there will be a repo with some progress. If you specced the goal well and it is feasible, a decent model will most likely get you decent progress.

        Also who would take on any of these projects for a meager 200$? Most of that stuff is borderline interesting, clearly not interesting enough for the people proposing the things to start working on them themselves.

      • sanreds 2 days ago ago

        Fablepool spends Anthropic's inference budget and puts the output under MIT, thats not growing Anthropic's moat, its commoditizing it. Anthropic just sells the API calls either way.

      • hereme888 2 days ago ago

        Price?

    • 8note 3 days ago ago

      if fable is writing it, courts my declare that its not even public domain? not a copywrightable work

      • plq 2 days ago ago

        I don't get this. No I did not write that code but I paid money to eg. Anthropic to buy that code. To me it sounds like I own it just the same.

        • 47282847 2 days ago ago

          Ownership is not the same as authorship. Copyright is about authors rights, not owners.

          If you buy a text of me, I cannot sign away my authorship, and there’s certain limitations on what you can do with my text regardless of contract. I can only sell you usage rights - which may or may not be exclusive. If the text I wrote is trivial, neither you nor me can limit when it is reproduced. The effort of collecting data is not sufficient, if the data itself is declared trivial. See rulings about phone books.

          When an AI provider produces data that is deemed not copyrightable, it cannot legally sell you exclusive usage rights. It can give it to you exclusively, but since you cannot yourself claim copyright, the moment you publish it it becomes available for others to use as well. One may argue that an LLM is similar to a phone book, with its entries being “trivial“ and its composition not artistic enough.

          At least that’s the line of argument.

        • 47282847 2 days ago ago

          Ownership is not the same as authorship. Copyright is about authors rights, not owners.

          If you buy a text of me, I cannot sign away my authorship, and there’s certain limitations on what you can do with my text regardless of contract.

          • Sharlin 2 days ago ago

            (This is correct in many jurisdictions but not in all; for example moral rights are not a thing everywhere.)

        • wongarsu 2 days ago ago

          "I paid money to someone to write that code" is exactly the line of argument that would lead to no copyright. There was the famous monkey selfie court case in 2015 that ruled that at least in the US, monkeys can't hold copyright. The same arguments would apply to AI. And since the AI can't create copyrighted works on its own, it can't assign copyright for works it created for hire either

          The other line of argument is the "Claude Code is to coding like a photo camera is to painting". The image is generated automatically, but the input in how you point the camera is enough to still make it a creative work protected by copyright. Under that interpretation, you are not hiring AI, you are using it like a tool

          The US Copyright Office holds the former opinion. I'm sure once this goes to court, lots of companies will vehemently argue the latter. I would not be surprised if we even end up changing the law over this

          • amarant 2 days ago ago

            >"I paid money to someone to write that code" is exactly the line of argument that would lead to no copyright.

            That's news to me. I (along with many hundreds of others) was paid to develop Minecraft, candy crush and battlefield, yet last I checked, they all retain their copyright.

            • wongarsu 2 days ago ago

              Because you are human, and can thus create copyrighted works, and can assign that copyright when you do work for hire. Monkeys and AIs can't create copyrighted works, so there is nothing to assign when doing it for hire

              The other line of argument avoids that issue by arguing that you personally created the code with the help of a tool (like a compiler or camera), not just commissioned it

              • amarant 2 days ago ago

                Sure, but that's not what GP stated at all, unless possibly if they're anthropomorphizing to the point that they refer to Claude as "someone".

                • wongarsu 2 days ago ago

                  GP's (or rather GGGP's) statement was "I did not write that code but I paid money". So they claim no authorship. Anthropic is a company, they can't be the author either. So the only one left as author in that reasoning is Claude.

                  I don't think that necessarily anthropomorphizes it. We speak of monkeys as authors without calling them human. And really the legally important fact is that there was no human author. You can also treat it like CCTV footage which is generally not under copyright because there is no human author (even though most would hesitate to call the camera the author either)

            • csande17 2 days ago ago

              As a human, it is possible for you to create copyrightable works and transfer the copyright to Microsoft in exchange for money. It is not possible for Claude Code to do those things because Claude Code is not a human.

              • amarant 2 days ago ago

                Yes, but Claude code is hardly a "someone", so that's not what the comment I replied to was arguing at all.

            • krainboltgreene 2 days ago ago

              They retain ownership over that code because you signed a contract saying explicitly that. Did you sign the same thing with Anthropic? Did your company?

              • Sharlin 2 days ago ago

                Anthropic isn't a party to such contract either because they (most likely, in the reasonable reading of relevant laws) hold no copyright over the output of their LLM.

        • true_religion 2 days ago ago

          In this case, it's more like you paid money to FablePool. FablePool used Claude as a tool, and it delivers the product so they are the owners of the code, and have the MIT copyright assigned to them.

          • Sharlin 2 days ago ago

            Nope. Copyright simply doesn't work like that. Unless there's real human creativity involved in the process, they can't just claim copyright to LLM output.

      • Bombthecat 2 days ago ago

        That's a problem more and more products in software will face.

        In a few years most saas will have 95 percent or even more AI coded code.

        Could I steal it and put it on git?

        • masfuerte 2 days ago ago

          No, because it's a trade secret. But you might not be in breach of copyright.

      • NewJazz 3 days ago ago

        That'll translate across copyright jurisdictions.

      • lwyrup 3 days ago ago

        I don’t know, if the design itself is copyrighted you could argue that the AI is just a bunch of hired workers that built it for extremely low wages.

        If I hired a bunch of people to build me a house, and I drafted the architectural plans with the help of a paid architect, neither the architect nor the builders have ownership over the home.

        So if a collection of people design something together maybe that has merit, they collectively paid for Anthropic to build it for them…

        • jonhohle 3 days ago ago

          I’m pretty sure copyright office has settled that already. Inly human expression can be copyrighted:

          > As described above, in many circumstances these outputs will be copyrightable in whole or in part—where AI is used as a tool, and where a human has been able to determine the expressive elements they contain. Prompts alone, however, at this stage are unlikely to satisfy those requirements.

          https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intell...

          • tgma 3 days ago ago

            The United States Copyright office. There's a whole world outside the US.

            And even then they can change their mind.

            Does not hurt to backstop with an explicit license.

          • rpdillon a day ago ago

            Using a harness to build something should clear that barrier, by the same logic that a photographer pointing on camera at something and pressing a button clears the barrier.

        • unmole 3 days ago ago

          > you could argue that the AI is just a bunch of hired workers that built it for extremely low wages.

          I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such an assertion.

          With apologies to Mr. Charles Babbage.

          • lwyrup 2 days ago ago

            All computation abides by the same laws of getting sh*t done. Ask Mr. Amdahl. It starts with plebs (AI or otherwise) getting paid low wages.

    • timcobb 3 days ago ago

      I think pooling/donating tokens will be a thing. Not sure if like this, but in some format. The Django project, for example, came out and said they don't want your tokens, but I think a lot of people/projects will (do?) want your tokens.

      • fny 3 days ago ago

        Why not just give a project money and let them decide how to spend?

        • FearNotDaniel 2 days ago ago

          I guess if you have a subscription with a token allowance that you are not going to use up this week, it’s better to let someone else use those tokens rather than throwing them away. So using the food analogy it’s more like a store giving away unsold sandwiches to the homeless at the end of the day instead of throwing them away.

        • bitmasher9 3 days ago ago

          Donating tokens to a software project is a bit like donating food to a hungry person.

          I think it might be beneficial to use blockchain, so that the donor can audit which prompts the token-pool they donated too performed. Perhaps donating tokens can also give you votes on which prompts are entered.

          • chrismorgan 2 days ago ago

            It’s a lot more like giving a hungry Hindu a gift card to a specific non-veg restaurant. Maybe they’ll use and enjoy it, maybe they’re vegetarian and will be insulted; either way that restaurant benefits. Especially if the hungry person exceeds the value of the gift card.

          • jagged-chisel 3 days ago ago

            It’s more like donating snack cakes to a hungry person.

      • ttb-2134 2 days ago ago

        Primeagen predicted this in his latest video. I just didn't think I'll see this today.

      • pitched 3 days ago ago

        The good ones all seem to be pointing in the direction of Django. Which, on its own, says a lot about how likely people will care about vibe-coded anything, whether pooled or not.

    • sahildeepreel a day ago ago

      This is such a interesting idea.

      Could this be the way we develop software in the future?!

      - instead of paying for subscription SaaS. Users pool resources for the idea, AI builds and maintains it. Pricing is a fraction of what we pay otherwise.

      A bit early today but definitely a possibility in a couple of years.

    • stogot 3 days ago ago

      Highly detailed plan with time for the backers to comment and suggest improvements*

    • Eridrus 2 days ago ago

      I think what will be interesting is not whether the code will be produced, but rather: will anybody actually use any this output?

      This sort of reminds me of startups that go out of business and then open source their code. It's kind of cool when they can do that, but almost nobody ever gets value from it.

      Anyway, if anyone uses the code produced this way in prod, I'd love to hear your story.

    • fragmede 3 days ago ago

      The problem with running open source code is the security aspect, but with Mythos running point, how would you distribute revenue is the real question.

      Which market is even left after since the sasspocaloypse?

      • galaxyLogic 3 days ago ago

        Maybe the financiers of a project just need it, they need it working, not to generate revenue for them?

    • onel 2 days ago ago

      This is exactly how I'm building an OS right now. I have a lot of things speced out, and for most of them also create an issue. And I have a friend that just points his claudr code at the repo and tells it to "find the next thing to work on and implement it" I then do the review, verification, etc, but a great way to used unused quota.

    • digdugdirk 3 days ago ago

      I've always wanted to figure out how to implement a cooperative source license. Something like, you're allowed to do what you want with it, but any derivative work requires the same license, and X% of any income goes to the cooperative?

      Not sure how it'd work, but there's absolutely a niche for a privacy focused data cooperative out there.

      • Ajedi32 2 days ago ago

        > X% of any income

        Any income from what? The code is free, right? X% of your company's total revenue? Might as well just say "companies can't use this".

        Personally I like the idea of a "free as in freedom but not free as in beer" license. You have to pay for a copy of the software, but after that you're free to use and modify it as you please, and share/sell your modifications under the same license.

        To turn that into a cooperative you could have a company own the code and pay developers in shares of the company for PRs or other contributioins.

    • oofdere 3 days ago ago

      yeah it should really be CC0

      • dietr1ch 3 days ago ago

        Should it? If it was real world infrastructure, like a bridge it'd be easier to say that it belongs to those who lead the project and those who put down the money

        • SequoiaHope 3 days ago ago

          The nice thing about a CC0 work is that it belongs to everybody. The leaders of the project have the same rights to use and modify the software as they do with software they have exclusive copyright over. In fact copyright does not grant the rights holder any new rights they did not have, it only restricts the rights of other people.

        • oofdere 3 days ago ago

          it probably already is in the public domain under US law, this just gives it the same status across jurisdictions

  • parliament32 3 days ago ago

    I love how even the "demo build" doesn't work. https://fablepool.com/projects/7

    Rather, it did work at milestone 14, but then regressed at milestone 15, where it changed the link from a wikimedia image to a nonexistent file in /assets (despite still having the "Photo via Wikimedia Commons" caption).

    edit: they removed it :^)

    • CobrastanJorji 3 days ago ago

      If you check "DEPLOYMENT.md," there is a lengthy list of deployment instructions for the app, and it includes creating an assets folder and putting an image of Claude Shannon in it. There are also other instructions, like "please make a favicon." So I think that bit is valid, the AI is simply farming out work to the human agent.

      My question, though, is why the "Live, public build log" only showing up to milestone 3, but the artifacts go up to milestone 15? And there are different index.html pages in the artifacts list, one for milestone 14 and one for milestone 15? Are there different conceptions of "milestone" in here? What's up with that?

      • svnt 2 days ago ago

        I have found that on long-running tasks, many of the communication (and other) invariants get dropped at seemingly arbitrary points along the way. It probably just stopped doing the log.

    • matthewbarras 3 days ago ago

      yeah.. deployment.md had instructions to stick a photo there, but rather than explain I just got rid. gonna work on a few examples and fund them so people can see it actually work

  • andai 2 days ago ago

    I wrote this to a friend in 2022:

    Here's an idea: reverse kickstarter

    1. people post ideas

    2. good ideas go viral

    3. people pledge actual money to encourage someone to step forward and build it

    4. interested creators make kickstarter type videos explaining their proposal for making the thing

    5A. people vote on which proposal to accept, or maybe

    5B. each backer can select a project to support

    ---

    Here steps 4 and 5 are replaced by Claude.

    Cool idea!

    • addandsubtract 2 days ago ago

      Shouldn't we still have people in the loop for selecting/proposing the best implementation (plan)? Vibe coding an entire solution from a prompt still doesn't feel like the optimal way to write software.

      • halJordan 2 days ago ago

        At some point you have to say "Is not having it better than having it?" Where's your dude, today, who's gonna code this? If it were gone happen, it wouldve.

        • e-clinton 2 days ago ago

          We are not there yet... and Fable makes me feel like it will be a while before we get there.

    • andai 2 days ago ago

      It also occurs to me now that the Claude version has about 3 fewer zeros at the end of the funding target.

      That seems to massively lower the bar for people investing.

    • m00dy 2 days ago ago

      not with prompts but "loops" maybe.

  • GodelNumbering 3 days ago ago

    "Solve Garbage Collection in C# for HFT · $10.00 raised of est. $200.00 target"

    This can't be serious.

    Broader point I am making is, what differentiates genuine ideas from the token burn? What happens when the pool exhausts but the task is not done?

    • asp_hornet 3 days ago ago

      From my 10 years in the .net, it seemed C# devs will pretty much do anything to avoid using the right tool for the job or solving the immediate problem at hand.

      • MattGaiser 2 days ago ago

        C# and Java devs are anecdotally the only kind of dev to think of themselves primarily by language.

        Most other devs don’t talk about language in a driest few sentences intro.

    • bethekidyouwant 3 days ago ago

      You keep putting money into the slot and pulling the lever

      • fragmede 3 days ago ago

        Real question is, how do you get press for this site after this falls off HN?

      • jimkleiber 3 days ago ago

        But at least collectively pulling it :-)

        • nhinck2 2 days ago ago

          While standing around in a circle

    • fragmede 3 days ago ago

      It indicates the level of trust people have in the platform, and the combination of the product-platform behavior. If someone with the wherewithal to solve garbage collection for C# for HFT could actually describe why GC in C# was a problem, they wouldn't be asking for $10. But for $10, for something something you're dimly aware of is a problem? I'd throw $10 at some nonsense I read on the Internet.

      > What happens when the pool exhausts but the task is not done?

      Have a stupider LLM aggregate similar questions.

    • kevin_thibedeau 3 days ago ago

      The sarcastic solution is to use C# bindings to a non-GC language. Put all available memory under control of a pool allocator and enjoy the perf gain.

      • edoceo 3 days ago ago

        Similar solution worked for ASP back in 1999. ASP/VBS was terrible slow at string building and Response.Write. Build it in the fast code and then output.

    • WorkerBee28474 2 days ago ago

      It's already solved (by humans) for Java, which can now be used for HFT. It seems like it's possible to do for C#.

      • pjc50 2 days ago ago

        Yes, this is the "LMAX Disruptor": https://lmax-exchange.github.io/disruptor/user-guide/index.h...

        You can write only-stack-alloc or limited-alloc C#, and Microsoft have put a lot of work into it (Span etc); it's just a bit unidiomatic.

        Mind you, the last time I had contact with HFT it was inside an FPGA context..

      • joe_the_user 2 days ago ago

        I think assumption of the gp is that while Fable might be impressive, even Fable would take a bit more (sarcastically meaning a lot more) than $200 of tokens to solve this quite serious problem.

    • pmarreck 3 days ago ago

      lol saw that one too

      "A thorough written survey of why .NET garbage collection causes latency spikes in HFT contexts"

      i'm like, dude, just rewrite in Zig if you want that control back, not all of your compute goodies will come from Redmond

    • matthewbarras 3 days ago ago

      market decides - just like kickstarter

  • sigmar 3 days ago ago

    I'd love to see Anthropic (or someone with mythos access) create a cybersecurity version of this. So that I could create a pool that says "find security concerns in this github repo." Then the report from mythos gets sent to the code/project maintainer and revealed to the public (that paid for it) at the 90 day mark.

    • guessmyname 2 days ago ago

      For your information, a group of Mythos-approved users at Apple, Google, Microsoft, and several other Project Glasswing partners have already been doing this for the past few months. We just can’t share many details publicly yet.

      • sigmar 2 days ago ago

        Who foots the bill?

    • sublinear 3 days ago ago

      The target codebase cannot improve beyond the point that the reports are incorrect and a waste of money.

      There is also the question of whether humans can waste so much time reviewing AI code that the vulnerability is not patched before it is exploited. Another one is whether when the human is removed from the loop that the codebase becomes more vulnerable in some other ways.

    • stevefan1999 3 days ago ago

      sounds like FableBugBounty

  • TrueGeek 3 days ago ago

    So the completed sample was estimated at $0.35, actually cost $0.52, but spend $0.55

    This bot is almost as bad as I am at estimating projects.

    • MeetingsBrowser 3 days ago ago

      > Build a completely greenroom, open source AWS

      > est. total target $516.00

      Lol

      • NewJazz 3 days ago ago

        Is green room a word? I've heard clean room. And green field. Is it just an amalgamation?

        • krisoft 3 days ago ago

          It is. But doesn’t fit with the rest of the sentence.

          “In a television studio, theatre or concert hall, the room where performers await their entrance.” https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/green_room

        • svnt 2 days ago ago

          Not sure but a green screen version of AWS for $500 is totally plausible and a decent metaphor for what you’d get with AI anyway.

        • stkdump 3 days ago ago

          Maybe a green field clean room implementation :)

        • beepbooptheory 3 days ago ago

          Its where the band can hang out before the show.

        • wahnfrieden 3 days ago ago

          author mistook the word

      • pitched 3 days ago ago

        A lot of AWS is built on open-source. This is obviously ignoring hardware costs. I don’t know if it is all that ridiculous anymore. These models are very good at wiring together open-source systems. The world is crazy right now…

        • thayne 3 days ago ago

          AWS has over 200 services, so that's a little over $2 per service. Yeah, a lot of it is built on OSS, but there is a ton of it, and there is also a lot of work involved in building the APIs and web UI, and making it scalable , secure, and resilient.

          Now, you might be able to make a version of some small subset of aws services that runs works ok for a small scale for with relatively simple needs, for that many tokens, but I don't think that's what they were going for.

          • NewJazz 2 days ago ago

            IAM for example is in house and integrates with every service. Sometimes in deep ways.

            • pitched 2 days ago ago

              I’m on your side in that I would never take a contract to actually do this, but…

              If we swapped out the IAM backend for something extremely simple like just private keys (one per allowed service or JWT-style list all services in the key), then we could have something that looks/feels pretty similar. With a 2$ token spend.

              Not at all the same but it would look/feel pretty close.

          • pitched 2 days ago ago

            > you might be able to make a version of some small subset of aws services that runs works ok

            lol, you’ve got that goblet of koolaid with me! Equal parts horrifying and interesting that it might not be impossible

        • awestroke 3 days ago ago

          The hard parts are not based on OSS

          • mystifyingpoi 3 days ago ago

            Exactly. It's like someone saying, that EC2 is OpenStack. Well, yes, but actually no :)

            • reverius42 2 days ago ago

              But, like, on paper it is, and on paper is where the prompt lives.

        • solumunus 3 days ago ago

          You’re getting lost buddy it’s definitely ridiculous.

        • LastTrain 3 days ago ago

          You, my friend, have drunk from the goblet of koolaid.

          • DonHopkins 2 days ago ago

            Careful dude, that's not a goblet of koolaid, it's a bottle of Amazon Delivery Driver Urine!!!

          • pitched 3 days ago ago

            lol but at least in comes in a nice cup then

        • artisin 3 days ago ago

          lolz. build aws. no mistakes.

    • pitched 3 days ago ago

      Did it not charge anything for the estimation itself? I wonder what model they’re using for that

  • fuddle 3 days ago ago

    I feel like using Fable in the name is a mistake, who knows how long that model will be around.

    • an0malous 3 days ago ago

      You could call it aiproductsexchange.com

      • andrewstuart2 3 days ago ago

        Bold move leaving out the dash between words a la experts-exchange lol.

        • fragmede 3 days ago ago

          thatsthejoke.jpg

          expertsexchange.com was a site from the before times.

          • andrewstuart2 3 days ago ago

            I wondered if it was intentional, but thought I would double down on it in case people missed it.

            Was the dashless domain really a site (or the site) at one point?

        • akman 3 days ago ago

          always have a backup plan (:

      • tartoran 3 days ago ago

        Without the sex change in them : AIProductMarket.com, AIProductHub.com, AIProductMarketplace.com, AIToolMarket.com, AIToolsHub.com

        • slopinthebag 3 days ago ago

          That misses the point entirely....

    • aaronbrethorst 3 days ago ago
    • CobrastanJorji 3 days ago ago

      I don't think using the name Fable is wrong, but I think a pool of Fables should be called a Grimm, or possibly an Aesop.

      • SauntSolaire 3 days ago ago

        Perhaps Grimoire?

        "A grimoire is a textbook of magic and sorcery. Traditionally, it contains instructions for casting spells, performing divination, creating magical objects like talismans, and summoning supernatural entities such as angels or spirits."

        Seems to fit.

    • vlovich123 3 days ago ago

      It's how they name classes of models, presumably this implies something about the relative quantization / size of model, not about the specific performance. E.g. Fabel 5 will be better than Opus 5, better than Sonnet 5, etc. The 5 is the version number of the particular iteration / training run at this class of model.

      • pseudocoup 3 days ago ago

        I think they mean: I feel like using [Sonnet/Opus/Fable] in the name [URL] is a mistake, who knows how long that model will be around

    • comboy 3 days ago ago

      But it sounds like FableFool so it has that going for it.

    • fragmede 3 days ago ago

      Even if that product disappears, OpenAI will never Anthropic forget it.

  • DannyBee 2 days ago ago

    Mixed in with all these aspirational positive things is some sad person trying to get a better Microsoft Teams client.

    https://fablepool.com/projects/76

  • rickcarlino 3 days ago ago

    We have entered the GoFundMe era of vibe coding.

    • matthewbarras 3 days ago ago

      goVibeMe

      • Bombthecat 2 days ago ago

        No

      • fragmede 3 days ago ago

        shit, that was the quickest $23 I went and bought a a domain name for.

        • weird-eye-issue 3 days ago ago

          Interesting way to waste $23

          • fragmede 2 days ago ago

            Some people have a drinking budget, I have a domain name budget. A couple years back, my friends threw a domain name transfer party, like a secret Santa where you got to surprise someone with a domain name you got for them.

            • weird-eye-issue 2 days ago ago

              The thing about budgets is you don't have to spend it all

        • cwnyth 3 days ago ago

          Beat me to it by minutes.

          • fragmede 2 days ago ago

            You don't list contact info on your profile page to contact you with, but I'd love someone (other than Fable/a bot) to work on this with, and you're clearly a like minded individual, so reach out

            • cwnyth 2 days ago ago

              I sent you an email.

        • Shorel 3 days ago ago

          Good call.

  • tomaskafka 2 days ago ago

    It seems highly suspicious that all the target cost estimates are for $150-$400, regardless if it’s a bench for pelican on bicycle, or a clone of AAA game.

    It reminds me of scam eshops where everything cost $random dollars in a hope that someone will enter a credit card number.

    • matthewbarras 2 days ago ago

      the estimation-engine is a work in progress. defs needs some work

  • xpct 3 days ago ago

    Before putting in money to this small anonymous website, I'd love to hear about the people behind the project. There's a single mention of 'Barras Industries', but not much mention about them online, or what else they've worked on.

    • matthewbarras 3 days ago ago

      fair comment! i'll add a link but we're at barrasindustries.com

  • itintheory 3 days ago ago

    They should have called this "WishingWell". I'm wishing them well, but some of these projects are so over the top pie-in-the-sky silly, and funded with $0.25.

  • realty_geek 2 days ago ago

    Would love to see non-technical audiences think like this.

    For years I've been trying to get estate agents to support an open-source real estate website builder. The pitch is obvious: instead of each agent paying thousands for a bespoke site, pool resources, fund the features you all need, and everyone benefits.

    Getting non-technical people to commit to something abstract before it exists is nearly impossible though. Hope a model like FablePool can change that.

    For the website builder, the open-source product is already there: https://github.com/etewiah/property_web_builder. It just needs momentum.

  • c7b 2 days ago ago

    Interesting that this doesn't seem to use blockchains. Arguably it would have been a good use case. OP, could you elaborate on the reasons for the choice (if it was a conscious one at all)?

    • qingcharles 2 days ago ago

      I was surprised. I expected it to be crypto payments.

  • brikym 3 days ago ago

    I think the bottleneck is testing. I want to build a replacement for Zwift, a virtual gym game for bike trainers and treadmills, but testing it could be difficult without a real person on real hardware. How does the LLM know about the hardware protocols and stuff like that.

  • yreg 3 days ago ago

    Almost all of the examples on the website are ridiculous, which in turn makes your project look bad.

    Imho you should wipe them, populate it with some realistic small scale ideas and be much more strict in review, at least for now.

    • nailer 3 days ago ago

      The first one I saw was local first memory for AI, which seemed entirely reasonable.

      • danielrmay 2 days ago ago

        Thank you! I'm actually using this adversarially (or maybe just an experiment) to compare it with an open source protocol that I've already begun to publish but am having trouble getting traction or review on due to it sitting awkwardly across so many domains: local first, capability, ux, security, personal AI memory, knowledge graphs. I have a reference implementation in Rust (I see this site built theirs in python - interesting) but I've been working more on building the right way to explain the need.

        It's hard to explain briefly, and so putting this prompt up was a way for me to possibly generate some interest and act as a little public marker for an idea: open-source user-owned memory infrastructure for AI and the importance that I think it represents. My vision and belief behind this project has been slowly building for the past two months - I think personal AI memory will become one of the most important layers in computing, and I'd like that layer to be inspectable, correctable, portable and truly owned by the humans it describes. I'd like to encourage any casual readers who might be interested to reach out to me.

  • jorl17 3 days ago ago

    This is genius! I can already see improved versions of this idea making it big.

    • bottlepalm 3 days ago ago

      Same, there is massive potential here for groups in the public guiding agents and having skin in the game with their own money.

  • xyzsparetimexyz 3 days ago ago

    Fantastic idea for a rug pull

    • Bombthecat 2 days ago ago

      Yeah, already several thousands in it

  • jrpt 3 days ago ago

    Seems similar to open source bounties, which have been tried in the past and never succeeded.

    We've seen something like 20+ years of different attempts of voluntary donations to fund open source, and it never worked. Companies barely fund anything voluntarily.

    I'm taking the opposite approach with Supported Source (https://supso.org/) which is this: actually force companies to pay to use the project. Sell commercial licenses. Make it mandatory to using your software commercially. This approach works much, much better than voluntary donations.

    • tgma 3 days ago ago

      I think there's a categorical difference between paying for long term maintenance voluntarily vs paying for something to exist. The latter works much better as the value prop is clear and you can scratch an itch. Kickstarter is similar.

    • fragmede 3 days ago ago

      Sooo.. what projects are most highly requested?

  • mypastself 2 days ago ago

    Sounds like great idea, but can’t seem to find some key info: which “public ledger” is used here? A blockchain? If so, there would need to be a massive fee overhead. If not, then how are we not relying on trust?

    Also, is there some kind of ownership structure based on investment?

  • opengears 2 days ago ago

    Why are there no reverse engineering projects listed? These would make the most sense actually. Or future features of MacOS, Apple hardware designs (as Apple would not be able to patent them then)

  • efficax 3 days ago ago

    it's remarkable how easy it is to identify websites built with the "frontend-design" skill in Claude

    • zzleeper 3 days ago ago

      I managed to write one that at least didnt had the font and colors (using 4.5)

      Yesterday, I prompted Fable to improve the frontend to make it look different from Claude style, gave detailed examples etc. 15 minutes and $32 dollars (!) later (used cursor lol) it gave me the shittiest more claudiest website ever, basically ignoring everything I asked

  • thih9 2 days ago ago

    > Rust Rewritten PostgreSQL

    https://fablepool.com/projects/53

  • a-dub 3 days ago ago

      i built a turbofan
      https://app.confbuild.com/p/z459
      
      now I want to build a complete Airbus as detailed as possible with give budget
  • hirako2000 3 days ago ago

    > Make Fable 6

    $1.00 raised of est. $205.00 target

    Humans shouldn't provide estimates.

  • suddenlybananas 3 days ago ago

    https://fablepool.com/projects/7 It didn't even put a picture in!

  • johnnyApplePRNG 3 days ago ago

    Excellent idea, I see a few issues though.

    First, your server is struggling. It took about 20+ seconds to respond just now, FYI.

    Second, it's not obvious to me that I can get my money back if something doesn't pan out / get approved by a certain date from the homepage alone. That might make people hesitant to put anything in if they think it might get locked in there forever if the site dies / you take it down / etc.

  • nine_k 3 days ago ago

    [flagged]

    • bcjordan 3 days ago ago

      This was a pre-LLM YC startup AssemblyMade which was basically this

    • skeledrew 3 days ago ago

      Not affordable, unless the devs are in somewhere like Vietnam. And there's still no way they can build as fast. And still, at that price point, quality would be highly questionable. So yh this doesn't survive beyond the joke stage.

      • nine_k 3 days ago ago

        The mention of quality puts it firmly into the joke territory, indeed.

    • tptacek 3 days ago ago

      I don't understand how that would not be a complete joke even if tokens were 2 orders of magnitude more expensive than they are.

    • electronsoup 3 days ago ago

      If you put that behind an API, you could sell the service much like the AI providers

      • satvikpendem 3 days ago ago

        And then get sued for fraud and go under, like Builder.ai

        • fragmede 3 days ago ago

          What if, and I know this is utterly batshit insane to suggest, but what if we don't lie about what we're doing?

    • sailingparrot 3 days ago ago

      Thats called Kickstarter

      • digitaltrees 3 days ago ago

        Sort of but in reverse.

        If users posted ideas, voted on them and then other people built them then that would be the same. But kickstarter is the producer posting an idea for presale

    • digitaltrees 3 days ago ago

      I wonder why that didn’t happen on kick starter. Product hunt was kind of this. It’s actually interesting. Why didn’t this ever happen?

      • eob 3 days ago ago

        I think because you don't know /which/ developer you're going to get.

        One interesting aspect of LLMs is that each one, weights frozen, can be thought of as a single developer whose work you have already evaluated.

        The cost of finding, evaluating, and negotiating with a new human is tremenous.

    • dboreham 3 days ago ago

      Fable will actually finish the job.

    • a1o 3 days ago ago

      It can work for students as a grant

    • cortesoft 3 days ago ago

      how expensive do you think tokens are, and/or how cheap do you think a developer is?

  • keyle 3 days ago ago

    This is literally an idea by the primegean on his YouTube under predictions. Self prophecy really with his reach but credit where it's due?

  • ProofHouse 3 days ago ago

    Made something very close to this, but not model specific. Ill try to shape it up tonight and tmr and drop it, would be cool to colab!

    • matthewbarras 3 days ago ago

      full disclosure, it's model specific because the domain was available + bandwagon

  • raincole 3 days ago ago

    Man, I really hope this kind of effort could be put into auditing the security situation of open source projects (via Mythos or not.)

  • stonesy88 3 days ago ago

    Brilliant idea! We need consensus protocols for voting on phases. Similar to the "twitch" plays Pokemon phenomenom.

    • kasince2k 3 days ago ago

      anyone who donates gets to vote (?)

  • 3adk1a 3 days ago ago

    Everything turns into a computer game and entertainment.

    Maybe add a "Build a worm that shuts down all Anthropic data centers."

    • pitched 3 days ago ago

      This, unfortunately, gets flagged for cyber and you would need to be on the unlocked Mythos.

  • JeremyHerrman 2 days ago ago

    I'm not sure why folks continue to build services with trademarked names they don't own.

    If Anthropic had a problem with Clawdbot they are certainly going to take issue with FablePool.

  • MattCruikshank 2 days ago ago

    Wouldn't it be better to just have an open source project, where everyone picks some tasks for their "spare" tokens to implement?

  • madprops 3 days ago ago

    I forgot to fully describe the prompt since I already described it a bit on the title of the submission, which might be a problem. I hope the title of the submission itself is included alongside the prompt when giving instructions to the AI.

  • 0xferruccio 3 days ago ago

    This is a genius idea, I love it!!

  • johnwheeler 3 days ago ago

    This is a good idea and for features and modifications you can make it so whoever chips in the most money gets more votes.

    This is one of those ideas that sounds bad on paper (Like people renting out their houses. But if implemented correctly could get some traction.

  • Tostino 3 days ago ago

    I could see something like this working if you actually had a assigned human developer(s) to assist the task. There are few interesting tasks that can actually be completed in one (or few) shot and have anything usable.

  • kbr_ 3 days ago ago

    This is precisely what I thought the other day. TBH my idea is slightly better.

    But I stopped after asking Claude about it. It categorically told me that the moment you fund a model, you are legally liable for its actions.

    How to get around it?

    • ffsm8 3 days ago ago

      I doubt that's legally decided yet. There hasn't been precedent as it hasn't been challenged yet.

      I mean Claude will tell you because anthropic made it tell you that, doesn't mean it's true.

      GoFundMe and indigogo aren't responsible for the actions of the funded projects either, hence it's unlikely that any judge would decide that the liability would go to the platform if it can show it's doing it's best effort in moderation wrt illegal content

      If you mean just throw it together and then don't moderate at all then .. yeah, you'll be held liable. But that's not because of the person paying the prompt, it's because moderating illegal content is the responsibility of the platform provider.

  • Stone515 2 days ago ago

    Interestingly, this project only just launched yesterday, and today Fable 5 has already been disabled.

  • danielrmay 3 days ago ago

    This is actually kinda exciting. I threw in an open-source idea I've been playing with, and paid $25. I hope it comes back up soon or I'm going to have to put Fable on building a replacement.

  • Yaqub_W 2 days ago ago

    How about letting humans participate, not just LLMs.

  • childintime 2 days ago ago

    The end of GitHub as we know it is near?

    Why do open source collaboration? Why not a single product developer getting crowd paid to add features, solve bugs, using AI. So many businesses will see their moat wiped out.

    On the macro level capitalism is winner-takes-all and Musk is the only one seriously playing the game. End game: own everything, including payments, and governments come begging and will protect him from citizen revolt. Supervillain/overlord territory.

  • razorbeamz 3 days ago ago

    This will be an excellent demonstration of what AI is incapable of.

    • kilroy123 2 days ago ago

      I agree, but I do find it interesting to see what people want built and wish for.

  • alchemist1e9 3 days ago ago

    Cypherpunks will be proud once there is a version of this cryptocurrency funded to providers receiving the cryptocurrency.

    Or maybe there is? or a version where only those funding have access to the results.

  • khernandezrt 2 days ago ago

    This is such a great idea. I often have things that im sure i dont have money for but maybe others would support it.

  • colesantiago 3 days ago ago

    This is a fantastic idea.

    There are lots of projects, software that shouldn't be SaaS subscriptions that Fable can build in public that can be free for everyone and also OSS.

  • akch 3 days ago ago

    Can built project really have MIT license? Considering MIT license still holds copyright but AI generated code cannot by copyrighted?

  • sourcegrift 3 days ago ago

    I need an X11/Wayland successor that has the simplicity of X11 but can be used assl a drop in replacement for Wayland

    • hirako2000 3 days ago ago

      Isn't wayland a protocol? A drop in would carry the complexity.

  • thatxliner 3 days ago ago

    "Make Fable 6

  • nailer 3 days ago ago

    It seems weird that you would have about 3% of your revenue taken away by card providers you should just accept USDC.

  • Uptrenda 3 days ago ago

    It would work if an engineer steered the pools. But doing this autonomously is a pipe dream.

    • matthewbarras 3 days ago ago

      there's a job going if you fancy it... pool steersman

      • contingencies 3 days ago ago

        We have a saying in Australia: "Up shit creek without a paddle."

  • qainsights 3 days ago ago

    I got an idea similar to this where the user can donate their tokens instead of dollars.

  • evanwolf 3 days ago ago

    Kinda fun but the approach today is strictly oneshot. Waiting for agentswithwallets to post.

  • ouraf 2 days ago ago

    How to murder bug bounty programs with one website

  • emsign 2 days ago ago

    "Build Grand Theft Auto 7" I like that here are my 0.25c

  • 827a 3 days ago ago

    Really fun idea that is simultaneously deeply embarrassing for Anthropic.

  • chrisss395 3 days ago ago

    This strikes me as crowd-funded prompt caching, but with humans in the loop.

  • Eridrus 3 days ago ago

    Hell yeah, $516 for a complete AWS replacement, I'm in lol!

    • ____tom____ 3 days ago ago

      Reminds of the four college kids that were going to clone Facebook. Turns out it's hard than it looks, if you have never tried it.

      • ThunderSizzle 3 days ago ago

        The coding isn't the hard part. It's the people and networking. Facebook's only moat is HOA boards that think private communication behind Facebook groups somehow equates to public messaging a community...

        In other words, once people got on it, it was too late.

    • selcuka 3 days ago ago

      If you look at the milestones it's a small subset of AWS features, but yeah, the estimate is still off.

    • MeetingsBrowser 3 days ago ago

      I wonder how the estimates are being created.

      I doubt an LLM would estimate an AWS rewrite to cost $500.

  • ____tom____ 3 days ago ago

    I'd fund "clone fablepool" for $5. Should be plenty.

  • adv0r 3 days ago ago

    same but different than this https://github.com/adv0r/tokens-for-good

  • kasince2k 3 days ago ago

    attach github to this. this is the new way to do opensource i guess

    • matthewbarras 3 days ago ago

      that's the plan! funded projects will spin up a repo

  • Yokohiii 3 days ago ago

    Could anyone post a project to turn that site into phub for LLMs?

  • anonym29 3 days ago ago

    Neat project idea, but truly ruined by requiring a google sign-in both to submit new projects and to donate to projects. Dead service to me until that's gone.

    Remember, Google aids and abets militaries of governments that the UN has found to be committing genocide.

    Weird how people seem to forget this.

    • matthewbarras 3 days ago ago

      Google was just the easiest to implement first. Was planning Github next - or would you prefer smth else?

      • anonym29 2 days ago ago

        My first choice would be non-SSO. Let me pick a username (or email address) and a password.

        Btw, thanks for the response. Not sure why you got downvoted for it, but you have my gratitude for being one of few devs who are sincerely responsive to these types of concerns.

    • thunky 3 days ago ago

      > Dead service to me until that's gone.

      Lets just hope the project is able to soldier on without you.

  • philluminati 2 days ago ago

    Whoever posted the request for Notepad++ on MacOS...

    ... I was feeling generous, so here you go!

    https://github.com/PhillipTaylor/notepad_plus_plus_mac_os

    I copy and pasted your prompt into Augment (Opus 4.7) and told it to do everything you wanted, then I told it to keeping going afterwards.

    I think there are a few missing pieces as it's quite a open-ended piece of work. This took 59,000 tokens.

  • danpalmer 3 days ago ago

    "Build a completely greenroom, open source AWS" – $700

    This is engineering theatre (pun intended).

    The amount of hubris here is exceptional, the author doesn't even know that it's "clean room" rather than "green room". What does it even mean to build an open source AWS? There are many open source IaaS/PaaS components. Is the author suggesting any hardware design, because that's a critical component.

    The only possible result of this is an AWS fanfic. An art project that looks vaguely like a cloud provider on the surface if you squint, but with zero substance to it.

    And this criticism has nothing to do with AI. You'd get the same spending 100x that budget on any engineering team.

  • ValentineC 3 days ago ago

    Has anything been successfully built?

    • asdfasgasdgasdg 3 days ago ago

      Fable’s been out for like a day and this site seems more recent.

    • matthewbarras 3 days ago ago

      fablepool didn't exist 24 hours ago .. so not yet

  • Davidzheng 2 days ago ago

    can I put open math problems on this site too with bounties

  • addedGone a day ago ago

    RIP.

  • goldylochness 2 days ago ago

    it's like a pre-vc funding round for projects

  • skeledrew 3 days ago ago

    Is this the new open source?

    • hirako2000 3 days ago ago

      At least it recognizes that energy deserves funding, ideally beforehand. Yet it would be harder to sell if a human asked for payment, even if delivery was guaranteed.

  • throwthrowuknow 3 days ago ago

    Like DeFi but for agencies.

  • mannanj 3 days ago ago

    Have any successful funds?

  • jgord 2 days ago ago

    Do we need a cryptocurrency for trading / donating LLM compute tokens ?

  • ukprogrammer 2 days ago ago

    ITT hacker news rebuilds a blockchain from scratch

  • digitaltrees 3 days ago ago

    Awesome idea.

  • thefounder 2 days ago ago

    This is DOA. Claude will refuse to work on anything there or better just bankrupt the funding members while delivering slop(on purpose to doge their cyber operations )

  • jayhickey 3 days ago ago

    Oh

  • ShinyLeftPad 2 days ago ago

    A heads up, since LLM is not itself responsible for any wrong it does, its operators are, and you are that guy.

  • morpheos137 3 days ago ago

    Lol good place for multiple eyes to view how limited "ai" is.

  • orliesaurus 3 days ago ago

    Ok who wants to pool up to build GTA 7? /s

  • MattyLinky 3 days ago ago

    This is such a good idea. Hell yeah

  • JohnMakin 3 days ago ago

    "I want an open source AWS" with $500 budget made me guffaw

    • LearnYouALisp 3 days ago ago

      "I have a turbofan model, pls build an Airbus" sounds about right

      • theYipster 3 days ago ago

        All for $670 :)

        In all seriousness, I would probably throw $10 at a project to design and implement a modern turbofan FADEC + all of the certification artifacts.

      • JohnMakin 3 days ago ago

        I got downvoted probably for tone which is my bad but what I’m laughing at is this person doesnt seem to understand why people pay for aws, it’s certainly not the laughably bad console or the buggy control plane. it’s the reliability guarantees granted by their massive physical infrastructure that was meant to replace sysadmin’s running racks in a closet and wrangling terrible ansible/chef playbooks.

        this literally already exists if you’re willing to maintain your own physical infra, and has for a long time - nothing aws does is that innovative software wise. maybe their managed k8s eliminates a ton of pain, but I dont know. it’s the reliability guarantee + support + not having to maintain physical servers. if youre willing to shirk all that and do it yourself why would you want aws? lol

        tldr; was laughing at the xy vibe of the ask

    • squidsoup 3 days ago ago

      OpenStack already exists