My poor wife is exhausted. She is still recuperating from how hard she worked behind the scenes to make for a perfect Thanksgiving gathering for our family, and especially for our seven grandsons.
In addition to putting up an abundance of decorations, she cooked a full spread replete with meats, veggies, and deserts galore. Along the way, she managed to sew costumes for each of the seven grandsons reflective of the first Thanksgiving. And to top it all off, she choreographed a day of activities, games, the annual reading of the story of Squanto, and a tremendous feast for the entire family.
The least I could do was help with tearing down the decorations, putting away the leftovers, washing the dishes, and generally helping to get the house back in order.
Of course, the question underlying all this is why. Why does she choose to utterly exhaust herself as she does whenever holidays roll around? And, of course, the answer is because she is absolutely passionate about our family, and especially about our grandsons!
All these thoughts were on my mind when I came across the following headline on www.newser.com: “This Fake 'Granny' Exists Solely to Foil Phone Scammers: British company O2 Creates 'Daisy' Chatbot to Waste Fraudsters' Time on the Phone”.
According to Newser Staff reporter, John Johnson…
Daisy Harris sounds like a phone scammer's dream target. But as Daisy herself says, she is, in reality, their "worst nightmare." Daisy, as it turns out, isn't real, explains CNN. She's a figment of artificial intelligence created by the British mobile phone company O2. The sole purpose of this chatbot's existence is to answer the calls of scammers, come off as a technically bumbling senior citizen, and waste as much of their time as possible in rambling conversation. "I drew a lot from my gran," Ben Hopkins, who worked on the project, tells the New York Times. "She always went on about the birds in her garden."
The tech team trained Daisy by bringing in an employee's grandmother for tea and recording hours of conversation. In a news release, the company says Daisy has wasted up to 40 minutes of scammers' time in various calls. Actual humans have delighted in pulling off the same trick, but Daisy's advantage is that she can take call after call after call. The company says it has worked to get various phone numbers answered by Daisy into scammers' circulation, but the Times notes she can only make a tiny, if satisfying, dent in the problem. "Although it does disrupt operations on a practical level, it doesn't stop fraud more broadly in any meaningful sense," says Elisabeth Carter, an associate professor of criminology and a forensic linguist at Kingston University London.
Having had my own life interrupted and my own time wasted more often than I prefer by scammers, I, for one, am thankful for this “fake granny”. Perhaps you can relate.
And yet, there is one thing I am even more thankful for. I am thankful that the Lord gave me two wonderful grandmothers, neither of which was in any way “fake”. Rather, both were as authentic a grandmother as anyone could ever hope to have.
The Apostle Paul once told the Philippians that he thanked God upon every remembrance of them. I can only hope that my grandmothers both knew just how much I loved them and thanked God for them. I probably did not tell them this as much as I should have; but, I look forward to seeing them again in Heaven one day, where I plan to thank them repeatedly.
But while I cannot now personally thank my own two grandmothers for the authentic love and favor they showered upon me, my sisters, and our cousins, I can personally thank my wife for doing the same for our own seven grandsons.
And I can trust that, in due time, they too will come to understand and appreciate what all she does for them. So much so that they will one thank God for every remembrance of her; and that they will then be sure to tell her what she means to them as a result.
SOURCE:
https://www.newser.com/story/360149/this-fake-granny-exists-solely-to-foil-phone-scammers.html.
SCRIPTURE:
https://biblehub.com/philippians/1-3.htm.
In addition to putting up an abundance of decorations, she cooked a full spread replete with meats, veggies, and deserts galore. Along the way, she managed to sew costumes for each of the seven grandsons reflective of the first Thanksgiving. And to top it all off, she choreographed a day of activities, games, the annual reading of the story of Squanto, and a tremendous feast for the entire family.
The least I could do was help with tearing down the decorations, putting away the leftovers, washing the dishes, and generally helping to get the house back in order.
Of course, the question underlying all this is why. Why does she choose to utterly exhaust herself as she does whenever holidays roll around? And, of course, the answer is because she is absolutely passionate about our family, and especially about our grandsons!
All these thoughts were on my mind when I came across the following headline on www.newser.com: “This Fake 'Granny' Exists Solely to Foil Phone Scammers: British company O2 Creates 'Daisy' Chatbot to Waste Fraudsters' Time on the Phone”.
According to Newser Staff reporter, John Johnson…
Daisy Harris sounds like a phone scammer's dream target. But as Daisy herself says, she is, in reality, their "worst nightmare." Daisy, as it turns out, isn't real, explains CNN. She's a figment of artificial intelligence created by the British mobile phone company O2. The sole purpose of this chatbot's existence is to answer the calls of scammers, come off as a technically bumbling senior citizen, and waste as much of their time as possible in rambling conversation. "I drew a lot from my gran," Ben Hopkins, who worked on the project, tells the New York Times. "She always went on about the birds in her garden."
The tech team trained Daisy by bringing in an employee's grandmother for tea and recording hours of conversation. In a news release, the company says Daisy has wasted up to 40 minutes of scammers' time in various calls. Actual humans have delighted in pulling off the same trick, but Daisy's advantage is that she can take call after call after call. The company says it has worked to get various phone numbers answered by Daisy into scammers' circulation, but the Times notes she can only make a tiny, if satisfying, dent in the problem. "Although it does disrupt operations on a practical level, it doesn't stop fraud more broadly in any meaningful sense," says Elisabeth Carter, an associate professor of criminology and a forensic linguist at Kingston University London.
Having had my own life interrupted and my own time wasted more often than I prefer by scammers, I, for one, am thankful for this “fake granny”. Perhaps you can relate.
And yet, there is one thing I am even more thankful for. I am thankful that the Lord gave me two wonderful grandmothers, neither of which was in any way “fake”. Rather, both were as authentic a grandmother as anyone could ever hope to have.
The Apostle Paul once told the Philippians that he thanked God upon every remembrance of them. I can only hope that my grandmothers both knew just how much I loved them and thanked God for them. I probably did not tell them this as much as I should have; but, I look forward to seeing them again in Heaven one day, where I plan to thank them repeatedly.
But while I cannot now personally thank my own two grandmothers for the authentic love and favor they showered upon me, my sisters, and our cousins, I can personally thank my wife for doing the same for our own seven grandsons.
And I can trust that, in due time, they too will come to understand and appreciate what all she does for them. So much so that they will one thank God for every remembrance of her; and that they will then be sure to tell her what she means to them as a result.
SOURCE:
https://www.newser.com/story/360149/this-fake-granny-exists-solely-to-foil-phone-scammers.html.
SCRIPTURE:
https://biblehub.com/philippians/1-3.htm.