Our Mission

Why do we exist?

Technology should benefit humanity, not harm it. The current AI industry has unfortunately not taken this path. We want Bonsai to be different, and so we’ve built Bonsai since day one with the intent of having a net positive impact, and to harness the extraordinary technology that is AI to help people achieve their goals. We believe education is the most powerful tool to impact a person’s future, and that it should be accessible to all. Similarly, we believe an educated future positively impacts humanity as a whole, as an educated society is one where humanity achieves amazing things. Of course, while achieving this goal, we at Bonsai must be responsible ourselves, and we have found one of the best ways to do this is to have a positive environmental impact. These values encapsulate the core ideas of Bonsai, but of course our thoughts are ever evolving and more extensive than expressed here.

Our Commitment

As mentioned above, Bonsai’s primary avenue to actively having a positive impact on the world at the moment is through our positive environmental impact. Right now, this looks like running smaller models, running our models on renewable energy, and actively paying for direct carbon removal: pulling significantly more carbon out of the atmosphere than the carbon we use. As an effect of our smaller models, we also use less water for cooling and ensure that our water usage is not negatively impacting nearby communities. As Bonsai grows, we want to expand our methods of caring for the planet beyond these mentioned, so we appreciate all of the users, donors, and supporters who are helping us achieve these goals. Currently, students on our free plan get 2x the carbon they use removed from the atmosphere, and users on our paid plan get 10x removed. (Maybe consider supporting us and the planet on our paid plan!)

About the Product

Sorry, all of the text above has been about our ideas and goals, let’s get to the product itself. Our focus with Bonsai is for students to actually learn with AI rather than using it to cheat. We’ve built a few tools to do this.

1. Learn: Helpful for everything, breaks down problems step by step so users can work alongside Bonsai.
2. Notebook: An interactive notepad where students work through problems with gentle help from Bonsai, a collaborative experience.
3. Quiz: Test your knowledge, get instant feedback so you know what you still need to work on.

About the Creators

Bonsai was created and is currently run by Zach Wallace and Josue Saavedra. We are students at San Luis Obispo High School, and created Bonsai during the summer before our senior year. After a few months of bringing our idea to life, we showed Bonsai to the world. We haven’t stopped updating and making Bonsai better since then, and we are so proud of how far it has come. We will continue our efforts with Bonsai, and are super hopeful that we can take Bonsai far and make an impact. Thank you so much for the support!