Nisrine and I have been working in the same company for many years (she's Head of Product, I am CPTO) and we have done great things for our employer(s) all along. But we always wondered if we could launch our own app – after all, we know the process of it all, we just "never had the time".
The idea started from a random conversation, after Nisrine told me a personal story about she had a stupid little fight with her partner, and after 3 or 4 back-and-forths on each side, she decided she was right. Of course, he decided HE was. But he was not sure, so he asked chatGPT... And lost :)
We were making fun of him but then we thought, wait: everybody fights for stupid little things. It would be great if someone impartial, neutral, with no bias, could move the needle in one direction. Not render a verdict like in a Roman Forum but just shows you where (both of) you are right or wrong, and then makes the person who is more in the wrong apologise. Yeah, an AI :)
Why apologise? One, because it's the best way to bring back peace to any relationship. Two, because it's hard to let go, put your ego on the side and accept that, "yeah, it's not worth fighting or sulking, sorry". And three... because it's so cool to see the other one bow and lose the argument :) Come on, don't pretend this is not thrilling to win an argument!
So we built this app, called Piece (sounds like Peace, it's the peace of offering to bring back peace – the logo is an olive branch). The app comes with different tones: witty, theatrical, sarcastic and counsellor (if you want to go deeper in the analysis). The principle is very simple: you record yourself, your partner records their version, you get an analysis of each side's good and weak points, then a verdict.
The app stores everything locally, no personal data shared anywhere (except the ephemeral transcript). And the two partners need to use one phone only: that brings them closer already. And from there, you can imagine all the features you want: dashboard with analytics (who has the biggest ego? how many times do you fight?), sharing on social media for "funny" humiliation, karma points, music generation of your fights etc. This app does not replace the couple therapy apps, of course. We are more malicious, this is more about a gamified experience for the day to day arguments.
While building the app (Claude + Claude Design, app is in Flutter if you're interested), we were amazed by how many hilarious sentences the AI engine came up with. We were not expecting something that smart, to be honest, and that was what we liked about this side project: every test was a laugh! – ok, maybe not when Nisrine introduced regressions in the code: she argues that she did not but we asked Piece, and I won...
We had good feedback from regular users so we recently decided to launch for a bigger public. The app is on the iOS and Android stores (look for "Piece, relationships"), works in English and French for now. Free to start, we'll surely implement credits when we grow our audience. Get it from here: https://thepiece.app
Happy to expand on any of this here if you are interested
IMHO, once someone is determined to be wrong more than once, the app will be abandoned by that party.
E.g.
R-R-X-X -- app will be abandoned by other party. "That thing always says I'm wrong"
W-W-X-X -- user will abandon the app. "This thing is never right."
W-R-W-W -- other party will discontinue. "I don't trust that thing you found."
R-W-R-R -- user will discontinue. "It isn't fair."
Wow, this is truly an insane, funny and a brilliant idea. Can't wait to give it a try. If we can't get an argument settled, at least we can have a laugh about it (he said, hopefully).
It seems like differences in communication style can often result in misunderstandings, arguments, etc...which then breed resentment, which lowers the tolerance for future altercations or disagreements. Your app assumes there is always a winner and loser and I'm not sure that is the case. I understand the intent to gamify the outcome but it may make the 'loser' feel shameful enough not to want to return. The sort of 'translation' feature I think is where I see the most value with ability for the agent to provide additional supporting details, or even modify the message in the communication style preferred by the other party seems like something I would use in my marriage.
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