the empty chair problem — why I'm building a desktop AI instead of another chatbot

the empty chair problem — why I'm building a desktop AI instead of another chatbot When you code alone, the chair next to you is empty. I created this post for the purposes of entering the Gemini Live Agent Challenge, but I'm writing it because this thought has been stuck in my head for weeks now and I need to get it out. I've been a solo developer for a while. Most of my day looks like this: stare at code, google something, stare more, realize the bug was a typo, stare even more. Nobody catches the typo. Nobody notices I've been stuck on the same function for 40 minutes. Nobody says "hey, maybe take a break" when I start angrily deleting code. And nobody celebrates when the tests finally pass at 2am. So I'm building VibeCat. It's a macOS desktop companion — an animated cat (or one of 5 other characters) that sits on your screen, watches your code, hears your voice, and sometimes speaks up. Not a chatbot that waits for your prompt. A colleague that sees, judges, and occasionally tells