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Ask HN: Does anyone believe role-play AI is effective for training?
We built Socratize, an AI-based training tool where employees practice real workplace scenarios instead of watching videos or taking quizzes.
Most corporate training is passive. People watch content, click through slides, pass a quiz, and forget most of it within days.
We wanted to try a different approach: learning through dialogue and repetition.
With Socratize, users enter realistic scenarios and have to respond to an AI “counterparty”.
For example:
A sales rep practices handling: “Your product is too expensive” A support agent practices de-escalating an angry customer An employee practices explaining a compliance rule in their own words
The AI responds like a realistic counterpart, challenges weak arguments, and continues the conversation until the user improves or fails the scenario.
The goal is simple: replace passive training with active practice.
We’re using Claude to generate responses and evaluate the quality of the user’s arguments based on context and reasoning. Each session is stored so teams can see where people struggle and what scenarios are hardest.
Tech stack:
Next.js (frontend) Node.js backend PostgreSQL Claude API
We launched the MVP last week.
We’re still early and would really appreciate feedback from people here:
Does this approach actually make sense for training? What use cases are we missing? What would make this fail in real companies? Is this fundamentally useful or just “interesting but not needed”?
Try it here: https://socratize.io
Free tier, no credit card required.
Happy to answer any questions.
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48221788
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
Building a Real-Time Chord Recognizer
Article URL: https://whatchord.earthmanmuons.com/articles/under-the-hood
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48221783
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
Bees May Be Killing the Plants They Feed From
Article URL: https://nautil.us/why-these-bees-may-be-killing-the-plants-they-feed-from-1281014
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48221752
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
Lovable's AI built a 100% accessible site – or did it?
Article URL: https://axesslab.com/lovable/
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48221739
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
Send Money Anywhere – UMA
Article URL: https://www.uma.money/
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48221724
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
Tailwind: Suffering from Success
Article URL: https://blog.sebin-nyshkim.net/posts/tailwind-suffering-from-success/
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48221711
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
Wearable robot boosts strength of children with spinal muscular atrophy
Article URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01573-x
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48221702
Points: 2
# Comments: 0
You get a worktree, everyone gets a worktree
Article URL: https://slicervm.com/blog/everyone-gets-a-worktree/
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48221697
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
LLM System Design Benchmark
Article URL: https://nqbao.com/llm-system-design/
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48221021
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
How NetEase Built an Authentic Wuxia Open World in Where Winds Meet
Article URL: https://80.lv/articles/how-netease-built-an-authentic-wuxia-open-world-in-where-winds-meet
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48221015
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
Planetary research: Innovative Mars rovers 'swim' through the sand
Article URL: https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/en/news-and-events/einblick/single/news/sandfish-mars-rover/
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48220985
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
Opal Pathtracer
Article URL: https://github.com/a-sumo/opal-pathtracer
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48220977
Points: 1
# Comments: 1
My Mental Model for "Is It Worth Automating?" Has Changed
Article URL: https://hermanschaaf.com/the-is-it-worth-automating-mental-model-has-changed/
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48220969
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
U.S. to Award Nine Quantum-Computing Firms $2B and Take Equity Stakes
Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/tech/u-s-to-award-quantum-computing-firms-2-billion-and-take-equity-stakes-7382e6be
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48220955
Points: 1
# Comments: 1
Show HN: A timeline of recent open source CVE intensity and volume
I was curious what it would look like if I plotted the intensity and volume of software supply chain CVEs over time, given what seemed like a flood of compromises lately.
It looked exactly as I expected, and I expect it to get worse before it gets better.
Yes, an LLM was used but because I wanted the simplest possible architecture, I steered away from using any back end at all. Instead it's just GitHub pages with a static json document as the source of data, updated daily by a GitHub action which stores and parses the OSV repository.
I wanted to include the Linux kernel but the complexities around how CVEs are assigned there made it difficult -- if I find a simple solution in future I'll add it.
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48220950
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
Show HN: PocketWebTools – Private AI tools that run in the browser
Article URL: https://pocketweb.tools/
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48220948
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
Gjbjhb
Friend or foul? Exploring the ancient bond between pigeons and people
Article URL: https://phys.org/news/2026-05-friend-foul-exploring-ancient-bond.html
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48220911
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
Show HN: Boatswain, A macOS menu bar app for Fathom Analytics
Hey HN,
Finally finished up this little app I built 2 years ago inspired by https://pulsestats.app (for Plausible) but for Fathom
Super useful for a quick glance at web stats without having to keep their dashboard open.
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48220902
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
Apache NetBeans 30
Article URL: https://netbeans.apache.org/front/main/index.html
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48220887
Points: 3
# Comments: 0
