Burner, the app that lets you create and destroy new phone numbers on a whim, now has a bot of its own that automatically blows people off.
Called Ghostbot, the bot lets you assign it to any number you have active, and respond to any number that may text you. Burner says there are a ton of users who use their service for keeping a bit of distance from the outside world while dating — and Ghostbot is perfect for that.
If you were to go on a date that didn’t quite work out (but they think it did), you could assign Ghostbot to automatically respond to their follow-up texts (‘ghosted’ as Burner puts it). A text like ‘let’s meet up again’ might be met with a ‘I’m pretty busy but I’ll get back to you’ from Ghostbot.
Like any bot, Ghostbot’s responses are canned. While it analyzes the incoming message to decipher the best phrase to respond with, an aggressive messenger on the other end would likely run through Ghostbot’s response rolodex in short order.
Burner also hopes Ghostbot serves as a proof of concept, so to speak. The service has a Developer Connection platform to let anyone build extensions for Burner numbers, which currently has some useful tools like a Slack extension and Google Drive add-on.
To use Ghostbot, simply visit its dedicated webpage, enter your Burner phone number and the number you’d like to start ghosting.
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