11 hours ago
CommBank unleashes ‘bot army' with Aussie accents to trap scammers
Listening to Linda Williams complain about her day while talking to a call centre operator as she fumbles around to find her credit card, it sounds like she's falling hook, line and sinker for an obvious scam.
The person on the other end of the line, who purports to be from a retailer's fraud department and initially addresses Williams as 'Madam', tells her that suspicious activity has been detected on her account – a Macbook Pro was purchased for $780, to be delivered to a Thailand address.
In an alarmed tone, Williams tells the operator that she lives in Sydney and never ordered the computer. The caller then informs Williams she can cancel the order, but that she'll need her credit card details to do so.
'All right gimme a sec, ah, sorry mate, let me try to, I think it's in my wallet, but it's been a crazy day and I'm not even sure I can do things right today,' Williams says. Moments later, she reads out her card details.
However, the scammer will never get any money out of her.
Williams can't be defrauded, because she doesn't exist.
She's an artificial intelligence-powered bot, part of a new army of fake personas with convincing voices and backstories as vulnerable Australians that will go into battle with criminals seeking to swindle people out of their money.
Williams' call was just one of what will be roughly 10,000 daily phone calls, and about 2500 text exchanges that the 'bot army' – which is an initiative from Commonwealth Bank and Macquarie University-born artificial intelligence firm – will conduct.
