(NewsNation) — A California man is fighting fire with fire, deploying a ChatGPT-powered bot to get back at telemarketing scammers by keeping them on meaningless calls for up to half-an-hour.
Roger Anderson created Jolly Roger, a telephone service that uses AI and voice modulation software to create and read scripts that waste telemarketers’ time, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The service offers fictional characters like Salty Sally, a busy mom with a distracting daughter, and Whitey Whitebeard, a bumbling senior citizen, along with the original Jolly Roger.
The Wall Street Journal detailed an encounter between a telemarketer named Kevin and Anderson’s chatbot, Jolly Roger.
“Thank you for calling card services,” Kevin said at the beginning of the interaction. “How are you doing today?”
“Huh,” the chatbot replied.
“What do you think, how much owed on your credit cards, collectively,” Kevin asked.
“I’ve been having trouble with my television remote,” Jolly Roger replied. “Can you help me figure out how to change the channel to watch my favorite show?”
“I’m talking about only your credit cards,” Kevin responded.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name,” the chatbot countered. “What’s your name, buddy?”
This reportedly went on for a while.
Jolly Roger uses Open AI’s ChatGPT to analyze what the caller is talking about, and then selects pre-written messages relevant to the subject, according to Techspot. The voices sound natural but the phrases can be repetitive and off-topic, often causing the scammer on the other end to get frustrated after being strung along for several minutes.
The service launched seven years ago but introduced its ChatGPT capabilities over the past few months. Telemarketers have been kept on the phone for as long as 30 minutes, Anderson told Insider.
Jolly Roger is available for just $1.99 a month. After gaining access, users can view, listen to and share the recorded calls through the accompanying apps.