An Honest Take

From the person who built this — and what keeps him up at night

The Concern

These tools will affect real people in real industries. Vehicle history services. AI detection companies. Recall monitoring businesses. Professional ID verification. I don't want to replace anyone. I want to give regular people access to better tools. But I can't pretend that making something free doesn't affect the people who charge for it. The world is moving fast, and I don't want to throw bombs.

Are these tools replacing professionals?

No. These tools are flashlights, not wrecking balls. VINorNOT won't replace CarFax — CarFax has exclusive data partnerships with insurance companies, salvage auctions, and service shops that no AI search can access. This tool tells you "maybe look deeper" or "looks clean." That's triage, not a replacement. Same with AI detection — purpose-built tools like GPTZero have models trained on millions of samples. RealOrNOT is a quick gut check. Useful, not a replacement.

Then what's the point?

The underlying technology already exists. Anyone with ChatGPT or an API key can do what these tools do — it just takes time and technical know-how. What we did is make it easy, fast, and free. A mom checking if her kid's car seat was recalled. A first-time car buyer doing a sanity check before paying for a full report. A teacher wondering if that essay was actually written by a student. These tools don't replace professionals. They help regular people make slightly more informed decisions in their daily lives.

What about the smaller operators?

This is closer to what Google did to phone books than what Amazon did to bookstores. We're making public information more accessible. NHTSA recalls, CPSC safety data, NICB databases — that's all already public. We're just making it easier to access. The big players are fine. The small operators who were essentially doing what an API call does manually — that business model was already on borrowed time, and not because of us.

Can I trust these results?

As good as these tools seem to be, it is best never to trust AI for actionable decisions. Every result comes with a disclaimer because we mean it. These are starting points, not verdicts. Your data never touches our servers — scans go directly from your phone to the AI. We literally cannot see what you're scanning. But please, always verify independently before making decisions that matter.

It's a confusing time. Technology is moving faster than any of us can fully process, and the ethical lines aren't always clear. But we believe more access to information is better than less. We believe free tools that help regular people are worth building. And we believe in being honest about the tension instead of pretending it doesn't exist.

Ultimately, the creator of these services is confident that the Lord Jesus will not become weak, even in the last days.

— The Creator of RecallOrNOT