Outsource Your Ghosting To a Robot
Texting is a fun, convenient, regular part of dating culture now. However, one downside is the sometimes inappropriate or often harassing texts that are becoming a growing part of this environment. Oftentimes, people feel unequipped to properly handle these situations. Or, they aren’t sure how to gracefully exit a conversation they’re not into.
Finally, a solution has arrived to mitigate these issues. Well, let’s call a spade a spade – a cowardly dating trend, “ghosting,” has now gotten even more cowardly thanks to “Ghostbot.”
“Ghostbot” recently partnered with Voxable, the bot makers, and Peter Mirani, a screenwriter and graphic artist, to build a smart, free utility for the mobile app “Burner” to combat creepy internet predators, and to help keep people safe from unwanted online dating and texting interactions. It’s the ultimate in privacy.
Want to nip an uncomfortable situation in the bud? Switch “Ghostbot” on and an intelligent agent will take over, handling an uncomfortable situation with humor, disinterest, and wit, quickly separating you from the conversation and the person on the other end of the line.
It acts as a virtual assistant for you, sifting through the grime of the interwebs, sending off witty replies to the potential suitors you don’t have time to deal with or ultimately decide you’re not feeling.
This new bot sets you up with a disposable phone number via “Burner,” or gives you as many numbers as you need, for messaging, calling, and voicemail, to keep your real one unknown. Most importantly, you can immediately deactivate it as needed.
You select the specific number or numbers you want to ghost on. Then, the chatbot will analyze the incoming message and create the perfect automatic reply (only sending it out after a suitable amount of time has gone by, of course).
Better yet, it doesn’t just type words – it also uses emojis in responses if deemed necessary. So there’s definitely plenty of fried shrimp and eggplant to go around in letting the creepers down easy.
Online sources such as @ByeFelipe, a Twitter account housing a variety of screenshots of atrocious behavior from text conversations, inspired some of the app’s replies.
While the bot may never do the job as effectively as a human, it seems to be a close second if you’re pressed for time and manpower in terms of getting your many suitors off your back. And, even if “Burner” or “Ghostbot” aren’t your thing, apps like this are setting the stage for an increased usability of bots, beyond automatic Twitter replies and impersonal brand interactions. It’s just a glimpse of what’s possible when the concept of bots merges with Burner phone numbers.
But, what’s next? Will we start sending actual robots to restaurants and bars to screen our dates first? Only time will tell.
