Sidekik

Meet and talk with digital humans

5 followers

Imagine hearing Apple stories from Steve Jobs, discuss going to Mars with Elon Musk or ask the Dalai Lama about spirituality. Sidekik creates Digital Humans of the world's most extraordinary people so you can meet, speak and become friends with them.
Sidekik gallery image
Sidekik gallery image
Sidekik gallery image
Launch tags:AndroidiOSMessaging
Launch Team
Anima - OnBrand Vibe Coding
Design-aware AI for modern product teams.
Promoted

What do you think? …

Ryan Hoover
Let's crowdsource Sidekik's next digital human. Vote on your pick (or reply below):
Johannes Tammekänd
@rrhoover Haha, that's a great idea! Seems like Kanye is the man.
Timmu Tõke
@rrhoover Deffo Kanye!
Timmu Tõke
@rrhoover Also glad Bieber is 0%
Johannes Tammekänd
Hey PH! 👋 I’m the CEO and co-founder of Sidekik. We bring digital humans alive. Last year my grandfather passed away. I felt a feeling familiar to a lot of people: I regretted not spending more time with him. I soon found myself diving into what he left behind - his letters, photographs, videos. So I asked a simple question of what if I could bring his memories alive again? That experience is what inspired the inception of Sidekik. Now, through AI & neural networks, we can bring data to life and currently we are doing so for the world's most remarkable people. Our long-term vision is 7 billion digital humans because we believe all of our legacies should have a voice. Please fire away with any questions you may have about our product, our team, our story, etc. Thank you for the hunt, @chrismessina!
Rauno Kutti
Oh nice. Gotta pick these brains, I need inspiration, RIGHT NOW.
Joel Burke
Really really cool project, I think the digital preservation of folks is something really critical and opens up whole new avenues for learning, entertainment, and real conversations with people you'd never have a chance to meet in real life
Johannes Tammekänd
@joelburke2014 Well said. When the Internet gave us access to all the world's general information, then Digital Humans will do the same on a personal level.
Lyondhür Picciarelli
Awesomely nice idea (digital preservation). Which leads me to the following question: I reckon it is less liable/breachable to “preserve” an AI’ed version of someone who is no longer alive — I’d still have a couple points here. However.. .. What about image usage rights and other disclosures? If I were to find an AI of myself in someone’s app speaking publicly on my behalf, I’d most certainly have reservations. How do you mitigate that? Have you ever/even considered this as a potential obstacle? Congrats on the project.
Johannes Tammekänd
@lyondhur Thanks! IP & legal wise we are doing the same thing as Google, OpenAI, etc - scraping public websites for public data and training neural networks on them. Obviously, this can be done with public figures only so you won't find an AI of yourself in someone's app (at least not in ours). Eventually, you will be able to create an AI of yourself if you choose to do so as you hold your own personal data.
Lyondhür Picciarelli
@johannestk I understand how it's done. My question was more like, for example, assuming that the Dalai Lama or Elon Musk aren't exactly happy with what they see. Then? Cheers for the prompt.
Johannes Tammekänd
@lyondhur Nothing new under the sun from that perspective because IP wise it is legal. You can check out DeepDrumpf for example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jan... In the longer-term, we believe the people will want & create the AI's themselves meaning they will have the control over them.
Lyondhür Picciarelli
@johannestk hmmm.. I’m not sure that example reflects my questions I’m afraid mate because DeepDrumpf was a piece of satire. Hence the name change and collections of publicly available data to fill it. Let me put it like this: what if you/someone created an AI’ed version of myself, using my very name and imagery without my express consent? I could run you through several scenarios where you could get a lot more than a slap on the wrist for that. Regardless of what you may believe people will do in the future (I also believe people will indeed created digi-selves as well), that would be beyond the point here. I’m talking about using the name and imagery of someone who’s alive and passive of questioning it without their permission. It’s sort of a retro rival question in a way, since I work in an industry where imagery usage and disclosure is an implicit must. I was just wondering whether this was considering in your foundation since, as far as I see it, it is a risk and liability to you. I believe I may have already gotten an answer for it anyway. Cheers for engaging. All the best.
Johannes Tammekänd
@lyondhur Those are valid points brought out by you and sure there are risks with it because it is undiscovered area yet. But at the end of the day, it comes down to online impersonation law by which what we do is legal - http://illinoisjltp.com/timelyte... TLDR; "Online social networking has reshaped human interaction in a way that reduces the barriers that would traditionally keep strangers apart.[4] Identification requirements are minimal and there is no proper mechanism of verifying the truthfulness of the information one presents in creating an online profile or e-mail account. However, creating a fake online profile is not a criminal act per se. The component that turns the lawful act into an unlawful act of online impersonation is the imposter’s malicious intent to “defraud,” obtain a “benefit,” or “injure”."
Al Sargent

Interesting that this app mentions Steve Jobs but ignores one of his best-known speeches:

Pros:

Interesting complement to Black Mirror episode "Be Right Back": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be...

Cons:

Diminishes importance of spending time with people before they pass. "Death is best invention of life" -Steve Jobs. https://bit.ly/30UyzfN

Johannes Tammekänd
@alsargent Thank you for the thoughts. "Diminishes importance of spending time with people before they pass." - We believe it is the other way around. A simple thought experiment. Can you today speak with the Dalai Lama, Elon Musk, your great grandfather? 99.99999% of the population can not. So it actually brings people closer together because people can now have personal access to them. It isn't about cheating death or replacing real humans but having the ability to connect with people who we are unable to do so because they are unreachable or they are of no more.
Eek Snider
Trump is not a great mind, everybody knows that
Joel Burke
@kucukkanat Well it's a fascinating mind (I'm sure some psychologists will have a field day analyzing him)
Eek Snider
@quentin_marie_laine Ok. I am getting serious for one second, he is seriously still not a great mind. One second is over. *laughs*
Eek Snider
@quentin_marie_laine and, I am not here to discuss politics. You can go to reddit. There is plenty of room there for you
Quentin Marie Lainé
@kucukkanat ok let's start over (sry for my survival english level), I do completely agree with you, I'm not here to discuss politics, the very subject of this project is "mind". And I have here a chance to catch a glimpse of a mind I don't understand and completely disagree with — A mind that is so powerful it's now running the most influential country in the world. I mean people like Alexander the Great or Gengis Khan would have killed nations to have a short overview of their ennemies mindsets… (And I'm speaking for me here) I don't know, I think I prefer to take time to understand my greatest fear freely, than the best role model I already agree with… Sorry if I was sounding harsh, it's quite hard for me to express myself in english, I just wanted to highlight the fact, that Donald Trump is certainly not a great person, but by definition (of an extent, amount, or intensity considerably above average.) indeed a great mind, worth knowing more about…
123
Next
Last