Chatbots are a well-established presence on the internet, using artificial intelligence to strike up 'conversations' with people who may or may not know what they are dealing with. While sometimes they can be helpful, in customer service, for example, they are often used for deceitful purposes too.
Car enthusiast Colin recognized what he was dealing with straight away, and decided to have a little fun with the catchily named 'Babi5662018.' "I get spammed by these bots all the time," Colin told Bored Panda. "On Instagram, email, the phone... Instead of just getting annoyed by the time waster that they are, I started using it as an opportunity to have a little bit of fun."
"Figuring out that they are bots is pretty easy. I'm a guy in his early 30s who is losing his hair, is happily married, generally sassy and post a lot of pictures of his car. What would any woman want to have to do with me? Aside from that, the account didn't have any followers posts or follow anybody. Some real geniuses are working over there in the spambot department apparently!'
Playing along with the conversation, he revealed some sinister details of what he was about to do with a cat, while the gormless 'Ms. Babi' babbled on mindlessly toward the inevitable 'I'll get naked if you sign up for this' scam. Surely he didn't really do that to the poor kitty though, did he? "No it wasn't my cat," he told us with a laugh. "You'd be surprised how many pictures of cats on barbecues there are on Google images."
Scroll down to see how it unfolded below, and let us know what you think in the comments!
Here's how people reacted to the amusing exchange
