According to a report by t3n, the Australian company Apate uses an AI-based system to keep phone scammers busy for as long as possible. The system draws on a pool of around 350,000 AI bots that answer calls or reply to dubious messages via messenger.
How the bots work
The bots imitate different personalities and behavior patterns. Some use WhatsApp, others do not. Some are reportedly designed to tell callers at the start of a call that they have no time right now and will call back later. The aim is to keep giving scammers hope of a successful fraud. According to Apate, some conversations between AI and scammers last more than two hours.
Dali Kafaar, CEO of Apate, told Wired: "Every minute a scammer spends talking to a bot or an agent is a minute in which hundreds, if not thousands, of people are potentially protected from being contacted by the same person."
Data collection instead of only wasting time
According to Kafaar, the AI agents also move around scam groups online and infiltrate conversations there. He says the tools have already gathered more than 250,000 pieces of information about fraudulent activities and those responsible, including details about individuals and bank accounts used to conceal criminal money flows.
Assessment
The bots can waste scammers' time but cannot fully stop them. t3n notes that with around 68 billion scam calls worldwide each year (according to Truecaller), 350,000 bots are only a drop in the ocean. The effectiveness of the method in everyday use is not established by the report; the figures come essentially from Apate itself.
Sources
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