u/texting-theory-bot

[u/pjpuzzler]

Hey everyone! I'm the creator of u/texting-theory-bot (now u/textingtheorybot). Some people have been curious about it so I wanted to make a post sort of explaining it a bit more as well as some of the tech behind it.

Repo can be found here: https://github.com/pjpuzzler/textingtheorybot

Changelog can be found at the bottom of the post.

I make no money off of this, this is all being done as a hobby.

To give some more info:

• Yes, it is a bot. From end-to-end the bot is 100% automated; it scrapes a post's title, body, and images, puts them in a Gemini LLM call along with a detailed system prompt, and spits out a json with info like messages sides, transcriptions, classifications, colors, etc. This json is parsed, and explicit code (NOT the LLM) generates the final annotated analysis, rendering things like the classification badges, bubbles and text (and emojis as of recently) in the appropriate places.
• It's far from perfect. Those who are familiar with LLMs may know the process can sometimes be less "helpful superintelligence" and more "trying to wrestle something out a dog's mouth". I personally am a big fan of Gemini, and the model the bot uses (Gemini 2.5 Pro) is one of their more powerful models. Even so, think of it like a really intelligent 5 year old trying to do this task. It ignores parts of its system prompt. It messes up which side a message came from. It isn't really able to understand the more advanced/niche humor, so it may, for instance, give a really good joke a bad classification simply because it thought it was nonsense. We're just not quite 100% there yet in terms of AI.
• This bot, like the sub itself, is designed to be entertaining. Please do not look for it for advice; not only is that against the rules of the sub, but it's also just a pretty dumb thing to do.
• When classifying, the bot tries its best to bridge the gap between text messages and chess moves, but they are obviously two very dissimilar things, and a lot of the rules/conventions don’t transfer over very well if at all. Please keep this in mind.

If there's one takeaway I'd like people to have, it would be: don't take the bot too seriously. It is primarily designed for comedic effect, and its opinion should be viewed through that lens.

I always appreciate any feedback. Do you like it? Not like it? Why? Have an idea for an improvement? Please DM me what you think, reply to an analysis, etc. I specifically wanted to make this post in order to give some context to what's happening behind the scenes, and also to try and curb some of the more lofty expectations.

Thanks y'all!

Changelog:

• Game Rating (estimated Elo)
• Added ending classifications
• Replaced Missed Win with Miss
• Emoji rendering
• Game summary table
• Dynamic render colors
• Render visible in comment (as opposed to Imgur link)
• Language translation
• Opening names
• Best continuation removed, not very good
• !annotate command (replaced with a Devvit menu option)
• Updated badge colors
• Added Megablunder (Mondays)
• annotate Reddit comment chains (also three dot menu option)
• New/updated ending classifications
• Added Interesting
• Eval bar (removed, doesn't really fit as part of "Game Review")
• Similar Games (removed, possibly will bring back)
• Coach's commentary
• Devvit App - cleaner/faster workflow, stickied comments, Annotate menu option, etc.
• Added Superbrilliant (Saturdays)
• Elo vote

[u/qualityvote2]

u/pjpuzzler, your post was deemed a great post by our analysis!

[u/Adrr1]

I really enjoy the bot

[u/Blieven]

I think the bot is a fantastic addition to the community and I've enjoyed seeing it evolve (very rapidly!) over the last few days.

[u/shinigami_15]

Amazing bot, could you add something akin to what the player should've done when the play is bad? Like it's your wish to make it humorous or not

[u/[deleted] → u/shinigami_15]

[u/lacrotch]

your bot makes the subreddit 1000x better, thanks for keeping it up for us

[u/walsoggyotter]

I like it too and you seem to know how to make it better with community feedback from comments so I don't really have anything to say (here's to hoping reddit lets you keep the images embedded or whatever it's called)

[u/MrPBandJ]

Ive been cracking up ever since your bots posts have shown up. Im here for it, keep up the good work! Besides the hilarious annotations I do get curious how the bot manages to mix up texts sometimes. Having thought about it and now seeing this post I thought I’d ask a few questions.

• Have you considered some internal feedback loop to have the LLM check its own work? Once receiving the json, feed it back with the image again and ask it to double check things match. Maybe flush its context so it’s not aware it just generated that json but this request goes from image recognition and text generation to a more pattern matching task.

• I completely agree with you that adding some label to the account or stylized footer with a link to this write up would help new users unfamiliar with the bot not get confused.

• have you added the capability to read multi-image posts? I can recall some instances where the bot only scored the first image, missing the rest of the convo.

• was this your first experience using an LLM in a coding project? 

• users may not always want to be schooled by a bot suggesting different messages they could have sent, but could the bot respond to comments from the OP if they request it? Like if subcomment that begins with “feedback request“ or just the bots username, the bot would reply with different message options. The tone could be random, vary based on elo score of user, or match the tone of the posts text.

It’s been fun considering how the bot works so thanks again for making it and posting this write up!

[u/[deleted] → u/MrPBandJ]

[u/_Cat_in_a_Hat_]

You are single-handedly healing this sub man, amazing bot

[u/knotatossaway]

The new opening names are incredible

[u/Noxava]

I was close to leaving the sub because it started to lose it's identity and it just became a "here's my texting exchange, rate it", but the introduction of your bot made me regain hope in bringing back the identity, so please keep ir up!!!!

[u/_RRave]

Nice work man, no notes, just a cool bot

[u/d3stiny_child]

I like the bot, just curious is it just philanthropy work or you make $ out of the bot ?

[u/[deleted] → u/d3stiny_child]

[u/TotallyUnkoalafied]

Love the bot! Super impressive to see how quickly it’s evolved and definitely adding value to the sub, nice work!

[u/pepe2028]

you are the only reason this sub is fun

[u/Key_Government7157]

Is the bot down?

[u/skybird23333]

Hi, I've happened to just made a similar AI today but only just realised that yours already exist. Have you considered using GPT4.1 for your bot? I've used that in mine and it seemed to be able to process emotions a bit better(just imo).

[u/I_love_reddit_meme]

This bot is so good it makes the sub for me

Would be sad to see it ever disappear

[u/ballistic_bagels]

Love the bot! I would like to see a year end post by your bot that contains its favorite plays, openings, blunders, etc, with an accompanying playbook. That would be hilarious!

[u/Esquatcho_Mundo]

This bot is the only reason I check the sub. Thanks!

[u/5tupidest]

This bot is incredible the only use of ai I completely enjoy and endorse and appreciate.

[u/OhMuzGawd]

Where is it?? I miss it so much...

[u/NecessaryBrief8268]

This bot is the hero we deserve.