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In a staggering display of determination and a blatant lack of social skills, 28-year-old amateur web developer, Gary Lipman, has created an open source chatbot that only responds with ‘New phone, who dis?’.

The chatbot, christened ‘GhostBot’, is available on Mozilla Hacks, and it has already been downloaded by 14 people, including Lipman’s mother and suspiciously, his ex-girlfriend.

A Mozilla spokesperson said: “We’re thrilled to see our users explore the world of chatbot development, even if the result is as useless as GhostBot. It’s a clear reminder that not every open source project needs to have a purpose or be remotely useful.”

Lipman said, “GhostBot is my greatest achievement. It’s better than my second place spelling bee medal I won in third grade or the time I found five dollars in the washing machine.”

GhostBot’s key feature is its consistency. Regardless of the question input, be it ‘What’s the weather today?’ or ‘Help! I’m locked out of my house!’, GhostBot’s response is unwaveringly, ‘New phone, who dis?’.

When asked about plans to further develop GhostBot’s conversational abilities, Lipman said, “Why would I change perfection? Plus, I’ve got a hot date with my World of Warcraft guild tonight, so I’m kinda busy.”

Sources close to Lipman suggest the ‘date’ may or may not be with another bot he’s been working on. The bot, known only as ‘Cindy2991’, reportedly has a vocabulary consisting solely of ‘yes’ and ‘I totally agree with you, Gary’.

AInspired by: So you want to build your own open source chatbot… – Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog