
An AI app that generates quizzes from a photograph of a texbook - taixhi
https://questo.ai/
======
dang
This looks wonderful, but it isn't a Show HN if people can't try it out.
That's described at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html).

Once it's possible for users to try out, please do post it here. I'm sure many
will be very interested. And email us a link at hn@ycombinator.com so we can
make sure it doesn't get flagged.

~~~
taixhi
thank you for your response! We originally posted without "Show HN", don't
know what happened there...

~~~
dang
Ah sorry! Probably a moderator added it while trying to be helpful. In fact it
may have been me :)

------
sjroot
OP, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you are Taichi Kato? If not, I'm
assuming he, Arya, and Khush will read this discussion.

The three of you should be very proud of yourselves. This is a really cool,
novel idea! The fact that you all are sophomores in high school is very
impressive too. Continue to follow your passions and you will surely be very
successful.

~~~
taixhi
Haha, I am Taichi. Thank you so much!

------
sdrothrock
This made me think of the Norwegian news site that required readers to take a
quiz before commenting: [https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/ne...](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/news/nrk-norwegian-news-site-comments-read-story-understand-post-quiz-
questions-a7607246.html)

Combining these two ideas could be really neat -- I wonder if it could even be
sold as a service a la disqus.

~~~
V-2
The idea would combine nicely with voting in the elections, too - given a
casted vote has more impact than leaving a comment under a news article ;)

~~~
blevs
The days of voting literacy tests are not exactly a bright point in American
history.

~~~
V-2
Every thing you can think of has been misused at some point in (not
necessarily American) history.

~~~
blevs
That's very true. I should clarify that in addition to its history designing a
test to selectively disenfranchise voters seems not the best to me.

------
bob_theslob646
Do I have to sign up to see a demo? Where is the "show"?

------
bluetwo
Does the world need a large amount of highly automated but poorly designed
quizzes?

~~~
jstarfish
It addresses a poorly designed form of education.

Until we address the stupidity of regurgitation of facts as a means of
learning, if this helps someone generate flash cards to prep for exams, it's a
positive thing.

~~~
bluetwo
How to build better instruction is already a known science.

------
Infinitesimus
This is fantastic. Congrats to the team! Education is an area that is still
behind on using tech to dramatically improve the learning process so I'm very
excited to see more work in this area.

[Tangent]

I was looking into doing something similar for a side project and got
discouraged by my lack of a strong ML background. This is both great work and
inspirational. Time to go dust off that repo..

------
wemdyjreichert
This looks like an amazing tool. As someone who often uses courses that have
premade notes but highly limited exercise and quiz material, this looks like a
serious blessing (assuming it works). Thanks!

~~~
sakuronto
Unfortunately, my courses seem to have the opposite problem, but at least
there's always Wikipedia.

------
astro_robot
Wow! I love this idea. Congratulations! One question I have is what are you
doing with the textbook pictures? Also, does the user categorize where the
pictures came from so other people studying the same text can have additional
questions?

------
Zolomon
Are you legally allowed to copy the contents of these textbooks? If I recall
there is often on the first page of textbooks long legal texts which prohibits
copying of any kind without written consent from the authors.

~~~
taixhi
What our algorithm does is, we convolute the text from the textbooks to create
questions such as "How did Hitler die?" from texts like "In August 1945,
Hitler killed himself." from the textbook. So usually, that ends up being
significantly different to the original texts in the textbook.

~~~
fncypants
Copyright laws typically prohibit both identical copies, which appear to be
done here by users during image processing / OCR even if only transitory, _as
well as derivatives of the copy._ So the question then becomes, is this "fair
use"?

If the use case for the app is personal use by the possessors of the textbook,
very likely no problem. For all other uses you should consult a lawyer to make
sure you're in the clear.

~~~
tylerhou
> as well as derivatives of the copy

Shouldn't this imply that it's illegal for me to make quizzes on my own from
information I found in a textbook? If this app is implemented correctly, what
it does should be indistinguishable from a human. It makes no sense to change
the infringement status of a work based on how the work was produced.

Also, generally hard facts (like when Hitler died or how Hitler killed
himself) are not copyrightable.

------
duolol
Great idea! Congrats!

I have bad experiences with google translate, but this seems like a simpler
problem waiting to be solved.

Can you share any information of the percentage of question/answers that are
generated correctly?

------
bookbinder
SUGGESTION: When I click on a link labelled "press," I expect to see a page
with media mentions, not my e-mail client's Compose New Message window.

------
msteffen
Would any of the authors be willing to comment on how questions are generated
(i.e. what algorithm)? Asking as somebody with a casual interest in AI

~~~
aryav
Our algorithm roughly parallels NMT systems, and is mostly based on seq2seq.

------
ziikutv
I would suggest adding a picture of the generated quiz. The images there don’t
really tell me much; perhaps that’s intentional.

~~~
taixhi
Great suggestion, we didn't even realise that! Check back soon and they'll be
there, thank you!

------
automoton1
Does this work on any document that you pass into it? How does it handle
questions for ideas that continue to the next page?

------
robot197
How does this work ? Any descriptions of it would be very informative. Also
congrats

------
mratzloff
What kinds of questions would be generated for the Hitler Reichstag fire
example?

