A new anti-fraud invention ‘Daisy’ acts and sounds like a real grandmother to fool scam callers into thinking they are an easy target.
Telephone scammers could soon find their work cut out for them, thanks to a new AI innovation that aims to keep them on the phone talking to an artificial ‘granny’.
Seeming like an easy target Daisy mimics old grandmother-like voices to trick scammers into conversing with them for up to an hour, giving scammers false hope that they found an easy target.
“So the scammers will ring her up and she would just keep them occupied for hours just saying slightly stupid things you know, so say ‘yeah I can see … a cat on the screen’ and make the scammers really cross,” said Mark Harrison, senior technical producer of a BBC radio show about scammers. “She’s AI, she doesn’t exist, so she’s got all the time in the world,”
Daisy’s number was strategically posted on online forums commonly used by scammers. Immediately after, the chat pod answered over a thousand scam calls that could have targeted real people.
Recently invented and released by Virgin Media O2, Daisy’s purpose is to minimise fraud as scammers will have less time to get to the actual elderly who may fall for the scams.
“I thought that is brilliant … If AI keeps scammers for an hour that’s an hour that they can’t be scamming somebody else so that is good, isn’t it,” said Mr Harrison.
After the success of Daisy, the anti-fraud invention is expanding with another 100 voices, each featuring unique storylines and scenarios such as chatting about the birds in their garden, making it harder for scammers to distinguish between real people and AI.
The director of fraud at Virgin Media O2 said, “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.”
“With scammers operating fulltime call centres specifically to target Brits, we’re urging everyone to remain vigilant and help play their part in stopping fraud by forwarding on dodgy calls and texts to 7726 for free.”