AI bots keep phone scammers talking: Apate builds the perfect victims
nordicinst · x · 2026-10-10
- WIRED reports on anti-cybercrime efforts using AI to scam the scammers, wasting their time on lifelike bots while gathering intelligence.
- Australian company Apate (named after the Greek goddess of deception) has spent two-plus years diverting phone scammers to AI bots trained to keep conversations going without ever falling for it. CEO Dali Kaafar calls it "building the perfect victims"—each minute a scammer spends with a bot may save hundreds or thousands of potential targets.
- With governments struggling to fight cross-border cybercrime, mass resource-draining tactics like spamming spammers are turning into real tools.
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