Yahoo has made a chatbot for delegating family responsibilities and is calling their new bot “Captain,” which allows parents (or presumably anyone in the family) to send a text message to a short code which will then do things like issue reminders to specific family members. Reminders can be for just about anything from asking a significant other to pick something up from the store on the way home from work or to remind someone that they have an upcoming appointment. In an age where the main form of communication for many individuals and families alike is through texting, Yahoo has set up a way to bring automation to family logistics, and they boast that it’s all possible to do without having to download or install any applications as the bot works through text messaging.
In addition to setting up reminders which will automatically alert the intended family member at the designated time, people can also use Captain to create a shopping list which is shared between everyone in the family, and anyone who has access to the shared list can also update it in real time, which will certainly make the act of getting shopping done a little bit easier when everyone can contribute in such a manner. What’s more, is that if users send a text to Captain asking it to add things to the shopping list, it will alert them to whether or not they have tried to add a duplicate item, and then add the remaining items. Users can also ask Captain to show them the list so they know what’s on it so they don;t add duplicates later on if they think of something else that they might need.
In the same way you can look up the shopping lists that have been created, you can also look up the reminders that have been set so you know not to set up a duplicate reminder, although perhaps setting up a duplicate will be intended by some users if the goal is to make absolutely sure that whoever you’re reminding gets the hint. Since this is all based on texts and not an actual app, compatibility isn’t limited to a specific phone OS. Getting started with using it is also fairly easy as all people have to do is send a text to Captain via the short code “773-786” and say Hi in the message which gets things rolling.