Sidekik

Meet and talk with digital humans

5 followers

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.

Launch tags:Android•iOS•Messaging

Launch Team

Product Hunt

Let's crowdsource Sidekik's next digital human. Vote on your pick (or reply below):

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7yr ago148 Answers

NFTPort

Maker

@rrhoover Haha, that's a great idea! Seems like Kanye is the man.

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7yr ago

Ready Player Me Halloween Edition

@rrhoover Deffo Kanye!

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7yr ago

Ready Player Me Halloween Edition

@rrhoover Also glad Bieber is 0%

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7yr ago

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.

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7yr ago

NFTPort

Maker

@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.

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7yr ago

@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.

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7yr ago

NFTPort

Maker

@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.

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7yr ago

@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.

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7yr ago

NFTPort

Maker

@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”."

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7yr ago

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

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7yr ago

NFTPort

Maker

@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.

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7yr ago

NFTPort

Maker

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!

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7yr ago

Color Farm

My my. This is awesome. Of course not perfect for now, yet I don't see why it can't be in the future. Kudos on the good work folks. I'm wondering if in the future it can be used by end-users to upload pictures and videos of their loved ones into the app and make a digital version of them?

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7yr ago

NFTPort

Maker

@0xmtn You are spot on!

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7yr ago

Campus Cribz

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

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7yr ago

NFTPort

Maker

@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.

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7yr ago