Criminal Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: This is Phoebe Judge from the IRS
Release Date: September 5, 2025
Host: Phoebe Judge
Podcast: Criminal (Vox Media Podcast Network)

Episode Overview

In this episode, Phoebe Judge explores the world of phone scams—and innovative ways to fight back. She dives into the story of Daisy, a charmingly forgetful AI grandmother created to waste scammers’ time. Phoebe interviews Daisy’s creators, Ben Hopkins and Morton Degarth, and even tries her hand at impersonating a scammer herself. The episode examines the psychology of scams, AI’s growing role on both sides of the scam war, and the power of turning the tables on fraudsters.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Meet Daisy: The AI Grandma Built to Defeat Scammers

• Proof of Concept: Phoebe begins by impersonating an IRS agent to try to scam “Daisy,” an AI English grandmother, out of her credit card information. Daisy, however, artfully wastes Phoebe’s time with confusion and digressions.

  • [01:04–03:54] Phoebe Judge & Daisy

• Daisy isn’t real—she’s an AI voice trained to keep scammers talking, distracting them from real victims.

  • [01:20] Phoebe Judge: "Daisy isn't a real English grandmother. She's fake. She's an AI voice... created to trick phone scammers by wasting their time."

2. Why Phone Scams Are So Effective

• Wide Net of Victims: Ben and Morton, Daisy’s London-based creators, explain that modern scams don't just target the elderly—Gen Z are also susceptible due to overconfidence in technology.

  • [05:03] Ben Hopkins: "Even Gen Z are just as susceptible to be scammed... often because they have a false sense of security."

• Scam Tactics: Scammers use trusted brands, pressure, deadlines, and psychological tricks (like spoofed numbers and “say yes” scams) to manipulate people.

  • [06:08–07:59] Ben Hopkins & Phoebe Judge

• The Value of Time: Daisy’s core mission is to “waste the scammers’ most precious resource: time.”

  • [07:59] Ben Hopkins: "For scammers, their most precious resource is time. And that is the thing that Daisy's designed to waste."

3. The World of Scambaiting

• Inspiration from Scambaiters: Ben and Morton drew on an underground community of “scambaiters”—people who string along scammers online, sometimes exposing or pranking them.
  • [09:39–10:04] Phoebe Judge & Ben Hopkins
  • Jim Browning, a well-known scambaiter, even helped train Daisy by sharing effective tactics.

4. How Daisy Was Built

• Technological Architecture: Daisy uses several AI systems: voice recognition transcribes calls, a language model generates responses based on personality traits and common scam data, and a custom AI voice brings it all to life.

  • [20:27] Ben Hopkins: "It is a combination of multiple AI tools, all working together in a little domino effect that all happens in a couple hundred milliseconds."

• Voice and Personality: The team collected the real voice of a colleague’s grandmother for authenticity, then layered in personality traits taken from their real-life grannies.

  • [22:30] Phoebe Judge, [17:00] Morton Degarth

• Building Daisy’s Character: Daisy talks about her late husband, Norman (a cricket fan), her grandkids, friends, and hobbies like knitting and baking—details designed to sound genuinely human and distract scammers.

  • [17:51] Morton Degarth: "She likes to talk about her husband, late husband Norman... Oliver and Olivia and Hunter are her grandkids..."
  • [18:23] Ben Hopkins

5. Daisy’s Real-World Performance

• First Test Calls: Daisy’s first scam call included a 40-minute attempt by a group of scammers, who grew frustrated but persisted as Daisy digressed about scones and grandchildren.

  • [27:05] Daisy: “So w’s then a dot, three times.”

• Tactics & Reactions: Scammers sometimes try intimidation, but Daisy remains unflappable, endlessly polite, and gently obtuse.

  • [30:04–31:33] Daisy & Scammer
  • [27:41] Morton Degarth: "[Scammers] try to do that intimidation tactic... but the AI doesn't have any emotions."

• Unexpected Creativity: Daisy’s language model invents new details on its own—once spontaneously adding a pet cat named Fluffy to her story.

  • [28:40] Morton Degarth: "Her cat Fluffy is something she made up herself."

6. AI and the Scammer Arms Race

• Rising Threats: Scammers are using AI to clone voices, produce fake video calls, and automate text message phishing.

  • [33:54–36:22] Phoebe Judge, Ben Hopkins
  • Real-world cases cited: voice clones to impersonate relatives, deepfake video calls resulting in significant financial loss.

• AI’s Dual Use: Ben and Morton see Daisy as an ethical, positive use of AI—a tool to “turn the tables” on those exploiting technology for deception.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [01:20] Phoebe Judge: "Daisy isn't a real English grandmother. She's fake. She's an AI voice... created to trick phone scammers by wasting their time."
• [05:03] Ben Hopkins: "Even Gen Z are just as susceptible to be scammed... often because they have a false sense of security or confidence in their own use of technology."
• [07:59] Ben Hopkins: "For scammers, their most precious resource is time. And that is the thing that Daisy's designed to waste."
• [10:04] Ben Hopkins: "She's been prompted to take [scammers] on tangents, to almost do the opposite, to bamboozle them, to frustrate them..."
• [15:18] Ben Hopkins: "There was a delay before Daisy responded... leveraging that bias [that old people are slow with technology] worked in our favor."
• [17:00] Morton Degarth: "We wanted to make sure that Daisy felt Like a real old lady, a real granny... we put a little bit of our grannies into Daisy."
• [22:30] Phoebe Judge: "They recorded her talking for two hours and then they tried to add her voice to Daisy's programming."
• [28:40] Morton Degarth: "Her cat Fluffy is something she made up herself."
• [31:33] Daisy (to an exasperated scammer): "Oh dear, you sound a bit frustrated."
• [36:22] Ben Hopkins: "We knew in 2022 that this technology was going to have an impact on... us as human beings and the way that we interact."
• [37:20] Daisy (to Phoebe): "Oh, absolutely, dear. You're Phoebe Judge, the wonderful host of the podcast Criminal... It's a real treat to chat with you."

Important Segments & Timestamps

• [01:04–03:54] - Phoebe attempts to scam Daisy, who parries with forgetfulness and digressions.
• [04:08–05:52] - Meet Ben Hopkins and Morton Degarth; Daisy’s backstory and purpose.
• [05:03–07:59] - Discussion of scam victim demographics and scammer tactics.
• [09:39–10:48] - Scambaiting as inspiration; Daisy’s responder strategies.
• [14:46–19:01] - Crafting Daisy's character, voice, and backstory.
• [20:27–22:49] - Technical breakdown: how Daisy’s AI works and how her voice was created.
• [25:00–27:41] - Daisy’s real scam calls; first-hand account of scammers’ reactions.
• [28:33–29:57] - Daisy’s spontaneous creativity: inventing new stories like a cat named Fluffy.
• [33:54–36:22] - Scammers' use of AI: real-world fraud stories, deepfake threats.
• [37:08–38:10] - Phoebe has a friendly, meta conversation with Daisy (Daisy in “friend” mode).

Final Takeaway

This episode brilliantly spotlights the creativity and technical ingenuity behind Daisy, an AI weapon in the fight against scammers—turning the tables to protect vulnerable targets and reclaiming a measure of justice with humor and humanity. As scam technology becomes more sophisticated, projects like Daisy offer clever, hope-inspiring countermeasures—and a touch of sweet, grandmotherly chaos for those who would do harm.