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Instead of hanging up on spam, many people use bots to talk to scammers or marketers, making them angry and giving up.

A scammer calls, asking for a bank password. Malcolm, an elderly British-sounding man, picks up, sounding confused: "Are you talking about some business deal?"

Later, another scammer calls again. This time, Ibrahim, an Egyptian-sounding man, plays along: "Honestly, I'm not sure I remember what I've bought recently. Maybe the kids in the house bought something. This isn’t my fault, is it?"

The scam calls are real. But Malcolm and Ibrahim are not. They are just two among many AI chatbots created by Professor Dali Kaafar and his team.

Through his research at Macquarie University (Australia), Kaafar developed Apate—a chatbot specifically designed to deal with scam calls. His goal is to keep scammers tied up in endless conversations with AI so they don’t have time to target others.

When telecom providers detect spam calls, instead of blocking them, they redirect the calls to systems like Apate. The chatbot keeps the scammer occupied. After each call, the AI extracts information on call duration, data the scammer tried to collect, tactics used, and more, to train itself, upgrade, and create new response scenarios. Kaafar's broader aim is to predict and handle scams in real-time.

Meanwhile, Lenny, playing the role of an elderly man who loves to ramble, is also becoming a nightmare for spam callers in Australia. With a raspy voice and occasional whistles, the chatbot keeps the conversation flowing, rambling on so that the caller can’t stay focused on their goal.

According to The Guardian, Australian telecom companies have blocked nearly two billion scam calls since late 2020. Currently, there are hundreds of thousands of "victim chatbots" like Malcolm, Ibrahim, and Lenny across the country. These chatbots take on various "ages," speak English in different accents, and are built with distinct emotions, personalities, and reactions. Sometimes they’re naive, other times skeptical or even rude.

Richard Buckland, a cybersecurity professor at the University of New South Wales (Australia), states that technology like Apate is creating a new battleground for scammers. However, he warns that verifying a call as fraudulent before transferring it to a chatbot is crucial to avoid unintentional complications or missing useful calls.

He also worries that criminal groups could use anti-scam AI technology to train their own systems. Scammers often impersonate well-known organizations and spoof legitimate phone numbers, creating a sense of urgency to push victims to act without thinking, leading them to share bank information or grant remote device access. Users should hang up immediately and avoid responding to prevent being manipulated.