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The UK branch of a parcel delivery company has turned off artificial intelligence (AI) functionality in its online chat systems after a frustrated user asked its chatbot to write a poem about how poor its customer service is, and it succeeded. Reuters drew attention to this.
“There was once a chatbot called DPD that was useless,” the bot wrote after Ashley Beauchamp gave up trying to give it a customer service number. Instead, the customer asked the bot to write a poem about their poor service.
“DPD was a waste of time, a customer’s worst nightmare. Finally one day DPD closed and everyone was happy. They were finally able to get the help they needed. From a real person who knew what they were doing,” the chatbot continued.
Beauchamp, a pianist and conductor, posted his “conversation” with the chatbot on social network X on Thursday and it has since been viewed 1.2 million times.
Beauchamp said that when he initially couldn’t get information about the status of the shipment, he asked the chatbot to tell him a joke. When he did, he asked him to write a poem about a mistake in automated customer service. He also encouraged him to swear and told him that “DPD was the worst delivery company in the world” and that he would not recommend it to anyone.
DPD UK said it has successfully used AI in its chat system alongside human customer service for several years. However, an error occurred after the last system update. “The AI element was immediately disabled and is currently being updated,” the company said in a statement.
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