Chatbots and artificial intelligence have gained significant attention in Silicon Valley as the Next Big Thing. However, despite the hype surrounding these technologies, many of us have yet to witness their practical applications. But it seem the story is gradually changing.

A man named Roger Anderson from Monrovia, California, has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that aims to waste the time of telemarketers and scammers. Anderson's chatbot, called Jolly Roger, is designed to deceive these unwanted callers into believing they are interacting with a real person and then engaging in conversations to prolong the interaction. The Wall Street Journal shared an encounter between a telemarketer named Kevin and Jolly Roger, where the chatbot responded with unrelated queries and requests, frustrating the telemarketer. Anderson offers Jolly Roger to others for a monthly fee of $2 and provides a range of chatbot personalities that confuse and annoy unwanted callers.

Anderson believes that telecom companies should consider leasing Jolly Roger or developing similar chatbots to help their customers deal with unwanted calls, as the current methods of blocking telemarketers are not effective enough. He has approached major phone companies, but they have shown little interest in his system so far.

In one instance, the chatbot successfully engaged a scammer who kept asking for credit card information, but the chatbot continued to divert the conversation and the scammer eventually gave up. The chatbot managed to keep the scammer on the line for around six-and-a-half minutes. More troubles for our arch enemy, cyber criminals, isn't it?