UK Firm Launches 'AI Granny' To Outwit Scammers With Endless Chatter

British telecom giant Virgin Media O2 recently introduced an artificial intelligence chatbot that is designed to control scam calls. 'Daisy', an AI granny can mimic human conversations and engage in endless real-time conversations with scammers. According to O2, Daisy is reportedly expected to waste scammers' time and ultimately reduce the number of scam calls to their customers. 

AI Granny Fights Scammers

According to a report in Forbes, Daisy is constructed to automate "scambaiting," a tactic where individuals pose as potential victims to tie up scammers' time, expose their tactics publicly, gather intelligence for law enforcement, and disrupt scammer devices' algorithms. 

The AI-powered chatbot is mad to impersonate an elderly person as they are often perceived as less tech-savvy, making them more susceptible to scam callers. Daisy's digital existence allows her to engage with scammers uninterrupted by human needs like sleep or personal hygiene.

In a YouTube video shared by O2, Daisy says, "While they're busy talking to me they can't be scamming you, and let's face it, dear, I've got all the time in the world. The video depicts Daisy as a photorealistic AI woman with grey hair, glasses, and pearls, conversing on a landline.

The video also features real-life conversations between Daisy and scammers, where the bot can be heard steering away from sensitive information like accounts and credit card numbers to talk about mundane topics like her family or knitting. As a result, the scammer can be heard audibly frustrated. 

One scammer tells Daisy, "It's nearly been an hour, for the love of ***!" to which Daisy answers, "Gosh! How time flies!" While another irritated scammer asks her, "I think your profession is bothering people, right?" In another clip, Daisy starts talking about her cat, Fluffy.

How Daisy Was Crafted

According to O2, Daisy has a dedicated phone number strategically added to scammers' contact lists by O2's anti-fraud team. This setup allows the chatbot to connect with fraudsters, transcribe their voice into text in real-time, and respond convincingly using a custom large language model.

Daisy is crafted to resemble a realistic British granny, thanks to a character "personality" layer. London-based creative agency VCCP Faith perfected the chatbot's human-like tone by taking inspiration from a staff member's grandmother and replicating her voice.

O2 said in a statement, "By tricking the criminals into thinking they were defrauding a real person and playing on scammers' biases about older people, Daisy has prevented them from targeting real victims and exposed the common tactics used so customers can better protect themselves."