Grandma Daisy Is A Scam-Fighting AI

There is a new hero that will make your online life more safe and secure. Meet Daisy – an AI-generated grandma created by British phone company Virgin Media O2 as the ultimate scam buster. Daisy's sole purpose is to talk to scammers all day so real people don't have to.

Daisy made her debut on 14 November and has already had more than 1,000 conversations with scammers so far, the longest lasting around 40 minutes, frustrating them with her tech-illiteracy and wasting their time by telling irrelevant stories about her grandchildren..

"The newest member of our fraud-prevention team, Daisy, is turning the tables on scammers – outsmarting and outmaneuvering them at their own cruel game simply by keeping them on the line," Murray Mackenzie, director of fraud at Virgin Media O2, said in a statement..

While Daisy may sound like a human, she is essentially an AI large language model with the character application of a grandma. She functions by listening to the scammers and translating their voice to text. The AI then searches its large database to find an appropriate response, based on the specific scam training it's received, and translates that text response to speech for Daisy to reply. All this happens in seconds with no additional input needed..

The company told CBS they worked with known scam artists to train Daisy and used a tactic called number seeding to get Daisy's phone number added to a list of online "mugs lists" — lists used by scammers targeting U.K. consumers. When they call, Daisy "has all the time in the world" to keep the scammers occupied..

In addition to wasting scammers' time, Virgin Media O2 hopes to draw attention to fraud by warning consumers to be vigilant about who they may be speaking to..

"Daisy is also a reminder that no matter how persuasive someone on the other end of the phone may be, they aren't always who you think they are," Mackenzie said..

According to the company's research, 69 percent of the British public has reported being the target of a scam and the company says it intercepted and blocked over £250 million (US$ 260 million) in suspected fraudulent transactions last year..

"Fraud is at epidemic levels, with organized gangs of fraudsters operating professional call centers which relentlessly target Brits every second of every day," said Virgin Media O2 COO Rob Orr..

"We're constantly building our defenses higher and sharing compelling evidence of what these gangs are up to but with no real deterrent in place, these criminals can repeatedly steal free from the threat of prosecution."