How an AI grandma is combating phone scams
Fraudsters frequently target the elderly for scams, so one company took matters into their own hands and created an AI grandmother who tricks phone scammers.
At first glance Daisy looks like every other grandmother, with hobbies like knitting, a cat named Fluffy and loves talking about her family among other things. However, the AI chatbot is designed to trick phone scammers into thinking they are speaking to a real person.
The AI, created by British mobile phone company O2, is designed to combat fraud, and while Daisy doesn't intercept any calls, she has a list of phone numbers used by UK scammers.
Daisy's mission “is to talk with fraudsters and waste as much of their time as possible with human-like rambling chat to keep them away from real people,” the company said in a statement unveiling Daisy earlier this month.
Her tactics have kept “numerous fraudsters on calls for 40 minutes at a time."
Developed in partnership with London advertising agency VCCP, Daisy uses a custom language model to hold autonomous conversations with scam callers in real time.
Her voice was modelled on a staff member's grandmother.
“Whilst anyone can be a victim of a scam, criminal fraud gangs often target the elderly so we leaned into scammers’ own biases to create an AI granny based on a real relative of a VCCP employee,” the agency said in a statement.
“Over the course of many hours of scam calls she’s told meandering stories of her family, talked at length about her passion for knitting and provided false personal information including made-up bank details.”
Last year, Virgin Media O2, blocked more than £250 million ($A487.5 million) in suspected fraudulent transactions, which is roughly equivalent to stopping one every two minutes.
According to the telecommunications company, Daisy was developed in response to research revealing that the top reason why the British public wouldn’t bait scammers themselves is because they don't want to waste their own time.
“With scammers operating full-time call centres specifically to target Brits, we’re urging everyone to remain vigilant,” commented Murray Mackenzie, Virgin Media O2’s director of fraud.
Daisy, has "all the time in the world", and the video's unveiling her character, showed just how positive her work has been.
“It’s nearly been an hour!” one exasperated scammer said over the phone.
Another fraudster said: “I think your profession is bothering people.”
The chatbot replied: “I’m just trying to have a little chat.”
Image: O2