A Former Google Employee Created An ‘AI’ Chatbot As A Joke, Now People Really Want In

Former Google product engineer Tucker Bryant is behind ChatTJB, an unconventional chatbot with an actual human on the other end.

Instead of relying on a large language model (LLM), Bryant manually answers users’ questions, offering a deliberately slower and less predictable alternative, Futurism reports. The platform offers a Pro tier, though it won’t generate faster answers like traditional AI subscriptions.

Bryant said he had experienced “cognitive surrender” while interacting with chatbots, a phenomenon where people become overly reliant on AI-generated advice. This experience prompted him to create ChatTJB to bring satire back to the chatbot experience. He promoted ChatTJB with a $6,000 billboard in San Francisco on July 27, 2026.

 

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“We often, or increasingly, trust LLM outputs so easily that we stop bringing our own creativity or critical thinking into the responses we receive, and over time that weakens our ability to be fully-functioning, sovereign human beings in the world,” Bryant said, per Futurism. “I thought it would be fun or interesting to create an experience that looks like the LLMs we trust a lot — that I, at least, have fallen prey to the trap of over-trusting at times.”

ChatTJB’s responses are intentionally unpredictable, with answers ranging from helpful to terrible, sometimes even offering answers that are completely unrelated to a user’s initial prompt. Like a chatbot, ChatTJB can also generate images upon request — or quick graphics Bryant sketches himself.

ChatTJB Took Off Faster Than Bryant Expected

At first, Bryant said, ChatTJB attracted several dozen incoming queries a day. However, after a photo of the billboard began making the rounds online, the platform quickly gained traction, eventually receiving roughly 1,000 prompts a day, Futurism reports.

“Some people are just looking to chat, asking about what to make for dinner, etc. And some people are coming with their personal life stuff, and it’s been really sweet to engage with them,” Bryant said, the outlet notes. “The one I keep coming back to — this is when I realized this isn’t just a joke to some people — was somebody a couple of days in said, ‘I’m on the first night of my honeymoon, and I don’t feel relaxed, is that okay?’ … I switched out of super-casual-mode into supportive-friend-model.”

Bryant also said over 1,000 people have reached out hoping to become part of the project, offering to help moderate the platform and answer incoming questions. He’s now cautiously exploring the possibility of turning ChatTJB into a community-run project.

“I’m going to move slowly,” Bryant told Futurism. “This was just intended to be an art project. I think it’s beautiful that people want to do something less ridiculous with it than what I had planned. I also don’t want people to get hurt, so I’d rather people wait a long time for their prompts than open the floodgates to anyone and everyone.”

As of Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, ChatTJB’s website says the platform is paused after receiving “more attention” than expected, allowing Bryant to work through the surge in traffic.

The post A Former Google Employee Created An ‘AI’ Chatbot As A Joke, Now People Really Want In appeared first on AfroTech.

The post A Former Google Employee Created An ‘AI’ Chatbot As A Joke, Now People Really Want In appeared first on AfroTech.