Inside story of how Ghostbot handles texting creepers

Last month, in collaboration with the folks behind the fantastic Burner app, my company Voxable launched our latest chatbot project, Ghostbot for Burner. Ghostbot runs on top of Burner's "open" phone numbers as an agent inside your text message inbox, allowing you to "ghost" away from fleeting relationships by responding to unwanted or creepy texters on your behalf. Since the launch, Ghostbot has been covered in over one hundred media outlets. Chris Messina was also kind enough to post it to Product Hunt, calling it "the first bot-as-personal-firewall" he had seen. The opportunity to break new ground in the coming era of bot-mediated communication was what initially both excited and terrified us about the project.