In a world where people are falling for scams left and right, RM53.34 billion was bled from Malaysians in 2023. To combat that, the co-founder of Replyr, Dylan Tan unleashed his latest creation called “Scammers On Hold AI” lovingly referred to as SOH AI. Through a recent Facebook posting on the Entrepreneurs and Startups in Malaysia group, he explained how his invention operates.
Simply put, the Chatbot is specifically engineered to stall and beat around the bush to waste time for scammers. To quote words from the creator himself, Dylan: “Every minute a scammer spends talking to SOH AI is a minute they’re not scamming someone else. Enjoy!”
Various tactics the multilingual bot employs include— making excuses, digressing, and sheer incompetence, all in the name of frustration and wasting time. The replies are even timed randomly between a day or a few seconds, baiting the scammer into wasting more time. To add insult to injury, scammers who stop replying get pestered with messages taunting them for their wrongdoings.
The real genius of the chatbot is that it’s a publicity stunt, as there’s a leaderboard that shows summaries of conversations and the tactics used. On top of the Google sheet is a message, asking for talent to join the burgeoning startup Replyr AI.
Online reactions have been largely positive, with praise for the concept of the chatbot and suggestions for further improving the functionality of SOH AI. It appears there has been pent-up animosity towards scammers on the Malaysian internet, and all it took was a chatbot to encapsulate this sentiment.
Interestingly, even Google search results now display the chatbot itself, rather than the actual Cantonese curse word it is based on. For those wondering, “sohai” implies that someone is a jackass, though it literally translates to “senseless female reproductive organ.” What do you think of this AI? Would you give it a try?
Gan contributed to this article.
Sources: The Edge Malaysia, Instagram, Replyr (1)(2) LinkedIn
