// WHO WE ARE

MISSION STATEMENT

Hi there, thanks for checking out Allylic!

This project is being built by me, a solo developer with an undergraduate background in chemistry and a master's degree in data science. I hold a deep-seated passion for learning, education, technology, and yes, chemistry of course! To many, chemistry is an intimidating subject filled with logical traps and challenging three-dimensional thinking. I believe it can be something else entirely: an intuitive source of wonder, modern-day potions, for the logical and creative thinker alike.

My goal is to share that curiosity by building a modern, hands-on way to learn chemistry that goes beyond memorization and helps students develop a true chemical intuition. Accessibility is important to me as I believe anyone and everyone should have the opportunity to learn chemistry. As such, at least for the moment, everything is free and I aim to keep it this way as long as I can!

This is a part-time passion project, so updates come when they come. Any and all feedback is welcome and genuinely appreciated, feel free to reach out at allylic.chem@gmail.com. Cheers!

ETHICS STATEMENT

ACCESSIBILITY

Knowledge belongs to everyone, and I don't want to hide access behind a paywall. Your ability and aptitude for learning should not be limited by what you can afford, knowledge is better when it's shared.

That said, I am a solo developer funding this project with my time, money, blood, sweat, and tears. If the cost of keeping the servers running grows beyond what I can sustain on my own, I may eventually need to pass some of that cost on to users. What I can commit to is this: I will always find a way to make Allylic free for those who cannot afford it, regardless of what happens.

AI TRANSPARENCY

AI tools, specifically Claude and Gemini, were used in the making of this website. As a solo developer who works a day job, these tools made building Allylic possible in the first place. I want to be upfront about that.

Using AI, while practical, comes with real ethical trade-offs that I think are worth naming honestly.

Large language models require enormous amounts of energy to train, which has genuine environmental consequences, raising energy prices for communities and in some cases running on dirty power sources that harm air quality and health. An estimated third of all new energy generation is expected to be used by large data centres, in part for training AI. Beyond the environmental cost, these models were trained on vast amounts of public data: photos posted to Instagram, answers written on Stack Overflow, posts on Reddit, and countless other places where people shared their work and ideas openly. When most people posted that content, they almost certainly did not expect it to become training data for a machine that might one day replace them. I know I didn't. Many would not have consented had they been asked. As a result, knowledge and creative work that belonged to all of us has been quietly repackaged, decontextualised, and made private.

I chose to use these tools to build something I otherwise could not have built alone. I want to be transparent about that choice. If Allylic ever becomes a business, I intend to pay people to replace the parts that AI built where possible. And if knowing that AI was involved in this project is a dealbreaker for you, I completely understand.

Thank you for taking the time to read this ethics statement, you baller you!