AI grandma Daisy robs fraudsters of time and nerves
Daisy has plenty of time and talks at length about her life. This keeps the AI grandma busy with scam callers who can't bother real people during this time.
"It's been almost an hour." "Oh, how time flies." Daisy loves to talk and is happy that someone is finally listening to her: about her cat, knitting or unreliable relatives. She is even tempted to pass on useless personal details. All with a clichéd slowness. It can take several minutes for the AI grandma to spell out her account details to the fraudster on the phone.
The mobile phone operator o2 from the UK is behind Daisy. It developed the AI model to protect its customers from scam calls. As long as the scammers are talking to Daisy, they cannot call real people.
According to figures from o2, one in five people in the UK are targeted by text or call scammers every week. 71 per cent would like to fight back, but 53 per cent don't want to waste their time. Daisy now does it for them.
Daisy has been active for several weeks now and spends up to 40 minutes on the phone with scammers. For "International Fraud Awareness Week", o2 has now made Daisy publicly known. For the AI grandma's responses, the scammers' calls are converted into text. The answers are generated by a specially created large language model and the voice output in the sound of an old woman is also provided by an AI. The aim is to have lifelike and protracted conversations.
As a primary school pupil, I used to sit in a friend's living room with many of my classmates to play the Super NES. Now I get my hands on the latest technology and test it for you. In recent years at Curved, Computer Bild and Netzwelt, now at Digitec and Galaxus.