This AI Chatbot To Fight Scammers By Wasting Their Time

New Delhi, India: British telecom firm Virgin Media O2 has unveiled Daisy, a custom-designed AI chatbot created to combat phone scammers by keeping m on line for as long as possible. This initiative comes in response to a study by Strand Partners, which revealed that one in five Britons face scam attempts weekly.

Daisy is no ordinary chatbot. Designed to mimic persona of an elderly British grandmor, she capitalizes on fraudsters’ biases about elderly victims—who are often targeted for ir perceived vulnerability. 

Modeled after a real-life relative of a VCCP team member, Daisy’s charm and wit make her quintessential “scambaiter.” Unlike human victims, Daisy has endless patience and no need for breaks, allowing her to engage scammers in hours-long pointless conversations, leaving m frustrated and unsuccessful.

Daisy was recently named O2's "He of Scammer Relations," a tongue-in-cheek title that highlights her role in keeping fraudsters occupied. Her persona, crafted by London creative agency VCCP Faith, combines natural language processing and a custom AI language model to deliver convincingly human and hilariously irrelevant responses. 

“While y’re busy talking to me, y can’t be scamming you. And let’s face it, dear, I’ve got all time in world,” Daisy quips in an O2 promotional video.

Daisy processes callers’ speech in real-time, converts it to text, and responds with AI-generated replies that embody her charming, grandmorly persona. Wher it’s chatting about her imaginary kitten Fluffy, reminiscing about her love of knitting, or providing bogus bank account details, Daisy keeps scammers engaged with long, unproductive conversations.

In one recorded interaction, a frustrated scammer, after nearly an hour of futile dialogue, exclaims, "It’s almost been an hour, for love of [expletive]!” Daisy, unfazed, cheerily responds, “Gosh, how time flies.” 

Anor scammer is subjected to an exhaustive discussion about Daisy’s imaginary family and hobbies, keeping m from targeting real victims.

Virgin Media O2 has actively distributed Daisy’s dedicated phone number to known fraudsters’ contact lists. initiative aims to disrupt scam operations while raising public awareness about tactics scammers use. O2 emphasizes that by tricking fraudsters into thinking Daisy is a real person, AI chatbot not only wastes ir time but also highlights importance of vigilance against scams.

“Daisy has stopped scammers from targeting actual victims and, more importantly, has exposed ir common tactics so customers can better protect mselves,” an O2 spokesperson said.