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 fool scammers into having conversations with them for up to an hour.
Since one in five Brits are targeted by scammers every week, Virgin Media O2 released the product this month after heavy investment that allows Daisy to detect scam calls, transcribe their voices and give an appropriate answer 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. She’s AI, she doesn’t exist, so she’s got all the time in the world,” said Mark Harrison, senior technical producer of a BBC radio show about scammers.
Daisy not only has stereotypical characteristics of grandmothers such as being non-tech savvy but “she” also gives out false bank account information that further frustrates the scammers.
The anti-fraud invention is released with ‘a 100 different voices’ all with the ability to ramble realistically so that scammers cannot detect which voices are real grannies and which are AI.
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.
The director of fraud at Virgin Media O2 warns, “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.”