Instead of disconnecting spam calls, many people use bots to talk to scammers or marketers, making them angry and give up.
A fraudster called and asked for a bank password. Malcolm, an older man with a British accent, received the call with a confused look: "Are you talking about some business deal?".
Later, another scammer called again. This time, Ibrahim, a man with an Egyptian accent, appeared cooperative: "To be honest, I'm not sure I remember what I bought recently. Maybe the kids in the house did it. This is not It's my fault, right?".
The scam call is real. But not Malcolm and Ibrahim. These are just two of a series of AI chatbots created by Professor Dali Kaafar and his colleagues.
Through his research at Macquarie University (Australia), Kaafar developed Apate - a chatbot specializing in dealing with scam calls. His goal is to keep people making spam calls in an endless conversation with the AI so they don't have time to fool others.
When carriers detect spam calls, instead of blocking them, they turn to systems like Apate. Chatbots will keep crooks busy. After each call, AI extracts information about duration, data the crooks want to collect, tactics to lure prey... to train, upgrade and build new response scenarios. Kafaar's further goal is to be able to warn in advance and handle scams in real time.
Using chatbots to "reverse torture" of fraudsters and advertising is becoming a new trend. In mid-2023, Roger Anderson, 54 years old in Monrovia, California (USA), also created the AI tool Whitebeard, which works based on ChatGPT combining text-to-speech software and an AI that simulates the phone owner's voice. phone. He said his family has been "tortured" by spam calls for more than a decade. Therefore, Whitebeard was born with the purpose of discouraging and wasting the time of marketers and phone scammers.
Meanwhile, Lenny, as the old man who likes to chat ramblingly, is also becoming a nightmare for spam calls in Australia. With a hoarse voice mixed with a whistle, the chatbot picks up the pace of the conversation like a real one, chattering so that the other end of the line cannot focus on the goal.
According to the Guardian, in Australia, telecommunications companies have blocked nearly two billion fraudulent calls from the end of 2020 until now. Currently in this country there are hundreds of thousands of "victim chatbots" like Malcolm, Ibrahim and Lenny. They play roles of many different "ages", speak English with many intonations, and build emotions, personalities, and reactions. Sometimes they are naive, sometimes cynical, or rude.
Richard Buckland, professor of cybercrime at the University of New South Wales (Australia), said technology like Apate is creating a new front for scammers. However, he warns that it is also important to confirm whether the call is a scam before transferring it to the chatbot, to avoid unwanted trouble or missing a useful call.
He is also concerned that criminal groups are also using anti-phishing AI technology to train their own systems. Thieves often impersonate famous organizations and spoof legitimate phone numbers, creating a sense of urgency to urge victims to act immediately, without having time to consider right and wrong, thereby causing victims to share account information. banking or remote device access. Users should immediately hang up and not answer because they may be lured and manipulated.