AI granny scams the scammers
“Daisy” is not real – but she’s busy talking on the phone to criminals so you don’t have to.
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It’s not often you read a positive story about artificial intelligence (AI). This is an exception that may change the way you think about technology.
In Britain, mobile phone company Virgin Media O2 has released an AI app that’s designed to talk to human scammers.
Why? Essentially, it’s to waste the scammers’ time to prevent them from conning real people.
Technically she’s a chatbot that has been taught to hold a conversation. But, as far as the person on the other end of the phones knows, she’s an older woman who loves to talk about her cat, Fluffy, and her grandkids.
She is also, by design, ignorant about technology, meaning she needs things to be explained to her very slowly and over and over again.
All of this is meant to waste the caller’s time; to keep them talking to Daisy instead of moving on to the next target – which could be you or me.
As Murray Mackenzie, director of fraud at Virgin Media O2, puts it, “The newest member of our fraud-prevention team, Daisy, is turning the tables on scammers – outsmarting and outmanoeuvring them at their own cruel game simply by keeping them on the line.”
Daisy was designed with the participation of reformed scammers. They helped teach the AI algorithm how to respond to scammers and “seeded” her phone number into a list of potential targets shared among these criminals.
In testing since 14 November, Daisy has responded to more than 1,000 calls and wasted a lot of time – including one session that lasted about 40 minutes before the caller realised they were the one being conned.
Daisy’s other role is to help educate the public about phone scammers and the way they operate.
“Daisy is also a reminder that no matter how persuasive someone on the other end of the phone may be, they aren't always who you think they are,” Mackenzie said.
Meanwhile, Google has just announced a new feature for its Pixel range of phones, which “listens” to calls and alerts the user via an alarm or vibration if the caller is using the type of language or tactics commonly used by scammers.
These include asking for bank details or creating a sense of urgency about a proposed transaction.
According to Scamwatch, phone calls account for one in three reported scams in Australia, costing us a total of $141 million in lost money each year.
Related reading: CNN, Virgin Media, CBS
