‘AI Granny’ is happy to talk with phone scammers all day

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On Thursday, the UK’s largest mobile network operator, O2, introduced a chatbot designed to frustrate phone scammers. Called “dAIsy,” it mimics an older woman with all kinds of time to chat – about knitting, her cat Fluffy – with the aim of keeping fraudsters engaged as they try obtaining her (fake) bank details.

A press release about O2’s “AI Granny” says it combines “various AI models” that transcribe the caller’s voice into text before generating a response through a custom large language model, then feeding it through a text-to-speech model to produce a voice answer. The AI was trained in part by Jim Browning, a “scambait” expert with a huge YouTube following.

It’s fun to see in practice. (O2 says the audio in the video below is real.) If it makes a dent, all the better. Last year, the FBI reported that people over age 60 were swindled out of $3.4 billion via telephone scams, up from $3.1 billion in 2022. With generative AI taking off — and voice impersonation with it — those numbers are poised to balloon.



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Lisa Holden
Lisa Holden
Lisa Holden is a news writer for LinkDaddy News. She writes health, sport, tech, and more. Some of her favorite topics include the latest trends in fitness and wellness, the best ways to use technology to improve your life, and the latest developments in medical research.

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