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An image provided by the British phone company O2 shows an artificial intelligence-generated conception of what Daisy Harris, O2\u2019s AI granny, and her cat Fluffy look like. [O2 via The New York Times]<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Daisy Harris likes birds \u2013 there\u2019s one outside her window. Her cat is named Fluffy, and she\u2019d love to tell you about her knitting hobby. She likes tea and biscuits. And she just can\u2019t seem to figure out this internet thing.<\/p>\n
But perhaps you can explain it just one more time?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the general vibe of a chat with Daisy Harris, an AI-generated granny unveiled this month by the big British phone company O2, as part of its efforts to curb phone scammers. She doesn\u2019t have a badge, or a warrant, or any way to really stop them. But when an unlucky fraudster dials her number, Daisy does have the power to waste unlimited amounts of their time.<\/p>\n
There are plenty of human scambaiters out there \u2013 people who identify would-be thieves and turn the tables, leading them on meandering conversations that keep them from calling other potential victims. Unlike them, Daisy is free of encumbrances like the need to sleep.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese people can\u2019t just talk to thousands of scammers,\u201d said Morten Legarth, who helped develop Daisy with VCCP, an advertising agency in London. \u201cBut there\u2019s an idea that AI can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phone scams have reached mind-boggling levels: Tens of millions of scam calls rocketed around the world every day last year, according to the phone security company Hiya. An anti-scam consortium says that more than $1 trillion was stolen, often when targets unsuspectingly turned over bank details, passwords or other personal information.<\/p>\n
The internet has only made these schemes easier, and while scammers don\u2019t discriminate, older adults are seen as easy prey: In one British study, 40% of people older than 75 reported getting scam calls at least monthly, if not daily.<\/p>\n
Daisy, with her befuddlement about technology and eagerness to engage, is meant to come across, at least initially, as the perfect target. Her developers said they leaned into expectations, often using their own grandmothers for inspiration.<\/p>\n
\u201cI drew a lot from my gran. She always went on about the birds in her garden,\u201d said Ben Hopkins, who also worked on the VCCP project. Instead of using a voice actor to train Daisy, the team opted to use one of its colleagues\u2019 grandmothers, who came in for some tea and recorded hours of dialogue.<\/p>\n
A prolific scambaiter based in Northern Ireland who posts on YouTube under the name Jim Browning worked with O2 and VCCP in developing Daisy, pumping her full of techniques to keep scammers on the phone. Among them: Go on lots of tangents on topics like hobbies and your family, and feign technological ineptitude.<\/p>\n
In one instance, three phone scammers teamed up on a call that lasted nearly an hour, trying to get Daisy to type \u201cwww.\u201d into a web browser.<\/p>\n
Still, given the sheer volume of scam calls, Daisy\u2019s efforts are less a blockade than a small speed bump. O2 customers can\u2019t forward shady calls to Daisy; instead, she answers a few different phone numbers out of the vast haystack of digits that scammers can dial.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough it does disrupt operations on a practical level, it doesn\u2019t stop fraud more broadly in any meaningful sense,\u201d said Elisabeth Carter, an associate professor of criminology and a forensic linguist at Kingston University London.<\/p>\n
Carter advised against trying to follow Daisy\u2019s lead in messing with scammers. As satisfying as it may feel, \u201cthe best thing to do if you receive a call from a fraudster is to not engage, to hang up and report it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared in The New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n