Meet the Bad-to-the-Bone AI Grandma: Smashing Scammers with Unparalleled Effectiveness

AI Granny: The Unlikely Hero in the Fight Against Phone Fraud

Imagine a world where scammers are kept busy chatting with a friendly AI grandma, wasting their time and disrupting their business model. Welcome to the world of Daisy, an AI-powered bot designed to annoy scammers and keep them from targeting real victims.

How Daisy Works

Daisy was created by O2, a British telecommunications provider, to demonstrate the potential of artificial intelligence in combating phone fraud. Trained using real scam call data, Daisy recognizes the tricks scammers use to manipulate their victims and responds with an expertly crafted mix of confusion, politeness, and sheer time-wasting.

A Scammer’s Worst Nightmare

One of the calls O2 shared features a scammer attempting to convince Daisy that her computer is full of viruses. The fraudster, expecting an easy mark, instead finds himself stuck on the line with a woman who can’t seem to figure out where her Internet Explorer icon is. "Oh dear, I see something here that says ‘Save As’—does that help, dear?" she asks sweetly. When the scammer finally snaps that her "profession is bothering people," she responds with an innocent, "Oh, I wouldn’t want to bother anyone. I just thought we were having a nice chat!"

Disrupting the Scamming Industry

O2 deployed Daisy into the wild, planting fake contact numbers on websites that scammers often target. Once the calls started rolling in, Daisy went to work, engaging fraudsters in conversations that led absolutely nowhere. Some scammers eventually caught on and realized they were speaking to an AI bot, but not before wasting a lot of time that they could have spent targeting real victims. In some cases, scammers even passed Daisy’s number around their call centers, each one trying and failing to get useful information out of her.

The Future of Anti-Fraud Measures

While O2 hasn’t mentioned any plans to roll Daisy out on a larger scale, the experiment has proven that AI has the potential to be a powerful tool in combating fraud. Future versions of Daisy could include different accents, personalities, or even local slang to make her even harder to detect as an AI. Until then, we’ll have to settle for the idea of an AI grandmother wasting scammer time, armed with nothing but a warm demeanor and an endless supply of off-topic anecdotes.

You Might Also Like…