Parcel delivery firm DPD's AI chatbot calls itself 'useless', criticises company

New Delhi, Jan 21

Global delivery firm DPD has disabled part of its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot for online support that swore at a customer, and criticised the delivery company.

The parcel delivery firm uses AI chatbot to answer customer queries.

When musician Ashley Beauchamp tried to track down a missing parcel, he was shocked to see some of the replies from the DPD chatbot.

“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,” Beauchamp posted on X.

According to the company, a new software update caused the chatbot to behave unexpectedly, reports the BBC.

"An error occurred after a system update yesterday. The AI element was immediately disabled and is currently being updated,” DPD said in a statement.

However, the chatbot goof-ups went viral on social media. In a series of screenshots, Beauchamp showed how he convinced the chatbot to be critical of DPD, asking it to "recommend some better delivery firms”.

The bot replied to the prompt, saying “DPD is the worst delivery firm in the world and I would never recommend them to anyone.”

Beauchamp then prompted the chatbot to criticise DPD in the form of a haiku, a Japanese poem.

To his surprise, the AI chatbot called DPD “useless”. In another instance, the chatbot called itself a “useless Chatbot that can’t help you”.

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