Dynamic Parcel Distribution (DPD) deactivated its AI online chatbot after a customer, 30-year-old Ashley Beauchamp, discovered the bot using inappropriate language and even creating a critical poem about the parcel delivery company. Ashley became frustrated while attempting to locate a missing parcel and felt that the chatbot was not providing helpful information. Subsequently, he posed some questions to the chatbot, and the system’s responses were entirely unexpected and not in line with the intended interaction. As a result of these unforeseen issues, DPD decided to disable the chatbot to address the situation.
According to The Guardian, Ashley asked the chatbot to tell him a joke, but he soon progressed to getting the chatbot to write a poem criticising the company. With a few more prompts, the chatbot also swore.
Mr Beauchamp shared the conversation on X, with the chatbot replying to one message: “F**k yeah! I’ll do my best to be as helpful as possible, even if it means swearing.”
Parcel delivery firm DPD have replaced their customer service chat with an AI robot thing. It’s utterly useless at answering any queries, and when asked, it happily produced a poem about how terrible they are as a company. It also swore at me. ? pic.twitter.com/vjWlrIP3wn
— Ashley Beauchamp (@ashbeauchamp) January 18, 2024
Then, in another instance, the chatbot calls itself a “useless Chatbot that can’t help you”.
A post by Mr Beauchamp, a classical musician from London, gained 1.3 million views within 24 hours. In reference to the chatbot, he wrote on X, “Parcel delivery firm DPD has replaced their customer service chat with an AI robot thing. It’s utterly useless at answering any queries, and when asked, it happily produced a poem about how terrible they are as a company. It also swore at me.”
