As phone scams become more and more sophisticated, a phone operator has come up with a solution that is as ingenious as it is funny.
The company created a chatbot that presents itself as a caring grandmother.
Daisy’s purpose, for that is her name, is to keep malicious people busy at telephone as much time as possible.
The technology behind a seemingly mundane conversation
Grandma Daisy is not a simple recorded voice, but a complex system that uses multiple AI models.
When a scammer calls one of the specially created phone numbers, the system instantly transcribes the caller’s voice into text, generates a personalized response via an advanced language model, and converts it into speech.
For this, he uses a synthesized voice, similar to a real human.
Everything happens in real time without any human intervention.
An actress in the role of the naive grandmother
Daisy’s charm lies in her ability to appear vulnerable and naive, exactly the type of person con artists find an easy target.
She may have long conversations about the grandkids, seem completely disoriented in the face of technology, or give fake bank information that leads nowhere.
In one of the demonstrations, Daisy confusedly asks what “three W’s and a dot” means, referring to web addresses, and complains that all she sees on her computer screen is a picture of her cat, Fluffy.
Results and lessons
The success of the AI grandmother is remarkable: it managed to keep the scammers on the phone for up to 40 minutes, during which time they could not target real victims.
Their frustration is evident, with one of them exasperatedly exclaiming “I think your profession is to piss people off!” after nearly an hour of seemingly meaningless conversation.
A project with social impact
The initiative is part of British mobile operator Virgin Media O2’s “Swerve the Scammers” campaign and comes in response to worrying statistics: 71% of Britons want revenge on scammers who have targeted them or their loved ones, while 67% are worried that they could become victims of fraud.
The team that created Daisy worked with Jim Browning, one of YouTube’s best-known anti-scam experts, to perfect her “personality.”
Source: www.go4it.ro
