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+---
+title: It Is Finally Finished
+seo_title: PygmalionAI Website Launch
+summary: Our official launch!
+slug: website_announcement
+author: Tav
+date: 2025-02-02
+
+project types:
+    - Announcements
+---
+
+Tav here.
+It has been a while.
+Over a year of silence from us. Last blogpost I wrote was back in January, 2024. 
+If you happened to be part of our Discord community and regularly kept up with the open beta announcements with our site, this is more of a signal that the open beta is officially over.
+For those unaware, the site is complete. Everything is operational at a good level and as of this date, PygmalionAI has completed its first platform.
+Our promise of building a website that started all the way back in 2023 has been completed.
+
+The website is here - https://pygmalion.chat/
+
+I recommend reading the rest of this blogpost before proceeding to the site.
+
+----
+## Recap Over PygmalionAI
+The AI industry moves fast so let me go over what this project is. 
+
+#### Current Founders
+![](https://files.catbox.moe/xuk4xx.png)
+< TEMPORARY IMAGE >
+#### Brief History
+This projected started back in late 2022. It was initially formed by people who were users of Character.AI, way back when Character.AI just started as a website, and decided that there needed to be an alternative as the site was in constant decline. Anyone who has the used it knows what I mean - generation degradation, unfocused site updates and most importantly the filter.
+
+Our first approach was building a model that could replicate the same experience. After a series of iterations, we eventually trained Pygmalion-6B to great success. Anyone who has been in the local community for a few years knows this model. We made several more model drops, not to the same success as Pygmalion-6B, in 2023, but we got things out there. 
+
+The last model batch was in September 2023. After that, nothing. Not even for the entirety of 2024. Why?
+
+During that time, it was when more base models started being released, more resources were being invested into making models, and the overall bar for quality has been raised. PygmalionAI, after one of the model developers left in mid-2023, only had one guy to handle finetuning models. While we trained a lot (around over 200 training runs on various base models), from internal testing and closed community feedback, we felt like it was not good enough to be released. That is my explanation on the lack of models until now (this will be bought up later in the blogpost).
+
+Let me rewind back to mid-2023, the project was actually on the verge of being hired by other companies. I was only handling Discord stuff until I caught wind of it and inserted myself into the discussion. After many back and forth, we decided that incorporating officially as a company was preferable. This meant making our own platform.
+
+Alpindale went off and started building Aphrodite-Engine. A batched inference beast.
+Tav went off and started forming a web development team. The website was called Galatea internally.
+TearGosling kept tinkering away at building datasets and training to potentially release new Pygmalion models.
+
+2024 was the year of constant dedication to building our respective projects. It is the reason why we kept things quiet so we can focus and successfully complete our own projects. We were still active with our community, that being the Discord, who helped us a lot with testing our projects. We sincerely appreciate everyone for their help. 
+## The Site and What We'll Do
+With the brief history segment out of the way, lets talk about the site. 
+
+< ADD IMAGE OF HOMEPAGE HERE AFTER FEATURED CHARACTERS ARE DONE >
+
+I spent a lot of time doing my own due diligence on building a good website. The additional time, while unexpected, spent on developing the website has allowed me to really focus on what we should do. Everything regarding the site, the responsibilities and directions, falls upon my shoulders. It's a tough job, nevertheless, I personally find it fun. Lets go over some key points.
+#### No Matter What, Respect the Promise
+What do I mean by this? 
+
+Back early on, our original promise was to build a Character.AI alternative. The biggest criticism of that platform was its filter and the constant quality deterioration of the models. For us to do the same thing would be a violation of the original promise.
+
+This promise can be interpretative however and I want to set the record straight on what exactly I am upholding here. 
+
+I treat the "Filter" as a hard "NO", or in otherwise, a flat out denial on an user interaction. There are two levels to this, (a) external system independent of the model that checks whether an interaction is "appropriate", and (b) model itself does a hard refusal with the interaction. Generations like "As an AI assistant, I cannot..." is a standard example of (b). If you came from Character.AI, then you'll be very familiar with (a).
+
+I'll go on record and say we won't be doing any of this. 
+
+As for the quality of the models, that is tricky because everyone has their standard on what quality is. The only approach I can take with this is giving people options and communicating changes on what we do with models. 
+
+The biggest headache I have to deal is scale. The more users we have, the more machines we have to deploy, which means we need to pay more for these machines. I am committed to allowing people to use our platform for free at some capacity, like Character.AI does, but I also don't have millions and millions of dollars to burn to meet those user demands. This leaves me with three options. Sacrifice quality for speed or reduce what the free users can do on the site. Either option is going to make people unhappy. The final third option, which is the hardest one, and cannot be done immediately, is constantly optimising models to be smaller but keep the same quality, and increasing the speed of our inference engine. This takes a lot of development work.
+
+If I was forced to make a decision to keep the website operating smoothly, then I would rather reduce what free users can do on the site until we can optimise things further. So, I'll go on record saying that free users will be the one hit the hardest when it comes to quality of service. It is an unfortunate reality in order to keep the site operational.
+#### Generic Clone Avoidance
+A major stressing point was figuring out how to avoid our website feeling like it is another generic clone of already existing platforms. "Why should people pay for our platform?" was the big question. 
+
+My conclusion was that we need to have features. And a lot of it. 
+
+**Here is what exists on the site currently.** There are more additional features on the site but this image covers the major ones.
+
+![](https://files.catbox.moe/ymrryw.png)
+
+**And here is what is planned for the future.**
+
+![](https://files.catbox.moe/pb011r.png)
+
+You may be curious what this "Unnamed Project" is about. In short, it is an advanced customisation system related to prompting. In order for us to make cool scenarios and experiences, this needs to be built first. 
+
+I'm going to avoid pigeon-holing ourselves into one approach. As long as there is something cool to do with text generative AI then I would like us to do it. At the end of the day, everything is just text. 
+
+If you would to stick along for the ride and see what we cook up, you can support our endeavours by giving a subscription on our site.
+
+## Models
+We will be releasing two models as well alongside with our website for the open-source community. 
+
+< INSERT MODEL STUFF HERE >
+
+< INSERT PLANS FOR MAKING MODELS HERE >
+
+< IMPORTANT KEY POINT - WE'LL BE MAKING MODELS DESIGNED FOR THE SITE FIRST >
+
+< MENTION OUR FOCUS IS ON TEXT GEN MODELS ONLY AND OTHER FORMS OF GENERATIVE MODELS REQUIRE COLLABORATIVE WORK WITH OTHER GROUPS >
+
+## Transparency From Tav
+It is no secret that PygmalionAI is a bootstrapped company. Meaning, anything involving money is funded by our own wallets. From paying developers, meeting bill invoices, and setting up advertising runs. 
+
+In the start-up world, this is the most difficult approach. High risk, stressful and it requires a lot of effort from the founders. Running an AI platform is expensive and high capital sites like OpenAI and Character.AI are subsidising their costs with money raised from investors. They have the ability to do stuff for free for a lot of users.
+
+That is not an option for us. Comparing us to them would be unfair.
+
+I don't enjoy interacting with investors. I tried, dipped my toes into the waters, and decided it wasn't the approach. Living on borrowed cash and trying to constantly appease the investors, I feel, is the antithesis of a community first approach. It does mean however, that the community is the make it or break it for us. In other words, the longevity of PygmalionAI depends on community support.
+
+While publicly, I'm titled as "Project Manager", my official role in the documents at PygmalionAI is the CFO, aka the money guy, and I will do my best to make sure we can last as long as possible. If I have to work full-time (alongside PygmalionAI work) to make ends meet, then so be it, if I have to pay out of pocket to cover deficits, I will do it.  
+
+At the same time, I'll be making sure to drop regular financial updates. My main goal is sustainability. When we earn enough money from our platform to cover the maintenance costs and paying our developer team without relying on our personal funds, that is when I say we "made it" as a company. 
+
+The allocation of money will go as follows - Invoices/Maintenance > Developers > Founders.
+
+I already offered to be last on the list when it comes to receiving pay from PygmalionAI. I didn't join up this project to make a quick buck and vanish. I like AI, especially text generations, and I want to us to do cool things. To those who have interacted with me before on my research focus, it has always about text styles. While image generation and audio generative have very simplified pipelines to create styles per user customisation, in text generation, it doesn't really exist. 
+
+I would like to change that and I believe it is very possible.
+
+Now, I know some people don't have the means to support us financially, be it due to the USD being too expensive, or you're simply unable for myriad of reasons. It's fine. As long as you tell us on how to improve things, give suggestions on what you'd like to see, and in general, remain passionate for text generative AI then that's all I ask. 
+
+Before I wrap things up, I'll allow my other co-founders have a say too.
+
+## Words from Alpin
+
+< ALPIN WRITE YOUR SECTION HERE >
+< YOU CAN CHANGE THE HEADER >
+## Words from TearGosling
+
+< GOSLING WRITE YOUR SECTION HERE >
+< YOU CAN CHANGE THE HEADER >
+
+## Final Remarks
+
+< I WILL WRITE THIS WHEN YOU GUYS HAVE ADDED IN THE DETAILS >