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A comment on Show HN: Sidekins – Your new social and work buddy. Parent comment

Re:Show HN: Sidekins – Your new social and work buddy by 18kage on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @01:37PM (#49981663)
I'm very much in favor of your idea, but this product is not that, this is just a very powerful tool with a funny face on it. The idea of Sidekins is not to just give you company and listen to you, it is actually meant to get things done and make talking to real people more fun.

I added the social angle to it because L never wanted to give people an AI companion which will just validate their feelings and isolate them, rather use AI to make an assistant that can help taking to friends more fun.

for example, I regularly ask my kin to go to my friends screen and do a fart animation and make a prrrrr sound, it irritates them and gives me joy, haha

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Re:Show HN: Sidekins – Your new social and work buddy by verdverm on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @02:26PM (#49982199)
the copy on the homepage contradicts this comment
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Re:Show HN: Sidekins – Your new social and work buddy by 18kage on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @02:49PM (#49982438)
which one? "A companion that lives on your Mac and hangs out with your friends’ sidekins." I call it a companion because it lives right on your screen like cute little person. It does make your interaction with friends much for fun, think of it like an emoji you'd add to your message to express yourself, with sidekins you can send a whole character expressing and doing stuff on their screens + all the work it gets done.

sorry if the message is not clear, I can reword it, hehe.

Do check out the demos on the website, that'll probably give a better picture.

Trust me, farting on your friends screen could only bring good to society ;)

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Re:Show HN: Sidekins – Your new social and work buddy by verdverm on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @04:08PM (#49983361)
like almost all of it?

I would invite you to read Artificial Intimacy by Sherry Turkle and then reflect on what this can do to people.

> and get hooked to it myself (from peer comment)

Avoid building emotional attachment to ai software. Do not have it talk with the voice of real people, or at all. It messes with our brains and being in ways we do not fully comprehend yet.

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