About
☕ Coffee? Yes, but we brew AI too.
Eniac (opens in a new tab), the World's First Computer (Photo courtesy of US Army)
Homebrew is an AI research lab. Our mission is to build human-augmenting AIs that run on energy-efficient hardware.
We were inspired by the Homebrew Computer Club (opens in a new tab), an early computer hobbyist group from 1975 to 1986 that led to Apple and the personal computer revolution.
What drives us
Nikola Tesla sitting in his Colorado Springs laboratory.
Like electricity (opens in a new tab) powering homes or space travel making the impossible possible, AI is our next leap forward. We see AI as a tool to make us smarter, kinder, and more capable.
Like fire that cooked our food and forged our tools, or electricity that powered our cities and connected our world, AI sparks both wonder and worry. We believe that AI augmenting human creativity (opens in a new tab) will help us change the future we've yet to imagine.
Human Augmentation
Spectacles improved human vision.
We believe that humanity's strength lies in our ability to create and use tools that improve our lives. From the first stone tools to the smartphones in our pockets, we've always augmented our capabilities through tools.
We have a chance to build AI to enhance our abilities on:
- Problem-solving: AI that enhances our abilities and expands our potential
- Collaboration: AI that we can tinker with and collaborate with us
- Automating mundane tasks: AI that frees us to focus on what truly matters by automating mundane tasks
Open Science
The Open Science movement at CERN, the birthplace of the World Wide Web.
We believe in open science (opens in a new tab). Our research findings, methodologies, and many of our tools are publicly available for scrutiny and further development by the wider AI community.
- Open Source (opens in a new tab): We share our code, and everyone can build upon and improve our work
- Build-in Public (opens in a new tab): We document our journey, successes, and failures
- Right to Tinker: We encourage our users to take it further by tinkering1, extending, and customizing our products to fit their needs
User Ownership & Privacy
The Apple I, one of the first personal computers
AI can be very dangerous from the perspective that Big Tech (opens in a new tab) accumulates way too much power, and privacy is sacrificed for utility. We believe AI can be advanced without sacrificing privacy.
- User Ownership of Data: Your data remains yours, always
- **Local-first: We adopt local-first (opens in a new tab) principles and store data locally in universal file formats. (opens in a new tab)
- Self-hosted: We provide options for users to run our AI on their own infrastructure
We make no attempt to lock you in, and our tools are free of user-hostile dark patterns (opens in a new tab) 2
We welcome business inquiries: 👋 [email protected]
We're currently a bootstrapped startup 3. We balance technical invention with the search for a sustainable business model (e.g., consulting, paid support, and custom development).
Community
We have a thriving community, where we also discuss our other projects:
- Discord (opens in a new tab)
- Twitter (opens in a new tab)
- LinkedIn (opens in a new tab)
- HuggingFace (opens in a new tab)
- Email: [email protected]
Inspirations
Good artists borrow, great artists steal - Picasso
We are inspired by and actively try to emulate the paths of companies we admire ❤️:
- Posthog (opens in a new tab)
- Obsidian (opens in a new tab)
- Discourse (opens in a new tab)
- Gitlab (opens in a new tab)
- Redhat (opens in a new tab)
- Ghost (opens in a new tab)
- Lago (opens in a new tab)
- Twenty (opens in a new tab)