Status Update, 5/17/26
The post I had planned was delayed because I wanted to do more research, so I will be writing this brief status update instead.
A lot of people are skeptical about trying to build a product to find the truth. With only a single exception in my life, everybody who has ever heard of creating a system which will allow people to discern what is true and false, has called it impossible. It’s a lot of people at this point.
There are good reasons for that. Anybody who claims to have a monopoly on truth should not be trusted. If somebody tells you that they are building a truth machine, you have a right to be skeptical. It sounds nutty! But somebody’s got to try. And thankfully the miracle of Claude Code makes trying things really easy.
I am trying to gather the base layer of data that are relevant for a person in search of the truth.
Right now, my goals are modest:
Track basic facts like the people, organizations, places, and things mentioned in content.
Track, not adjudicate, factual claims.
Archive the content for a durable record.
These goals are in line with basic journalism. People should have the ability to check a given URL for the claims that it makes. That would be a good first step toward truth, and that is what I am working on. I have made considerable progress on a browser extension that I’m calling X-Ray for now.
Previously I was developing a Tampermonkey user script, but found that capturing and archiving the components above from inside a webpage’s own Javascript security sandbox is not conducive to capturing data. I had limited success, but pivoted to browser extension full time.
Also, this experience has taught me how effective vibe-coding is. Truly we live in miraculous times.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the lawsuit against the Mormon Stories podcast. I’ve been capturing lots of data from the media surrounding that. There are plenty of ways to apply technology to this specific case to see what kind of treatment each side is getting.