UK firm disables AI after chatbot goes rogue

On Jan 20, 2024

Dynamic Parcel Delivery (DPD) UK, a British parcel delivery company has deactivated the artificial intelligence (AI) feature in its online chat systems.

The decision followed a clever user who managed to prompt the system to craft a poem highlighting the shortcomings of the company’s customer service.

“There was once a chatbot named DPD, Who was useless at providing help,” the bot wrote after Ashley Beauchamp gave up trying to get it to share a phone number for customer services and asked it to write a poem about bad chatbot service instead.

“DPD was a waste of time, And a customer’s worst nightmare,” the bot continued before concluding: “One day, DPD was finally shut down and everyone rejoiced. Finally they could get the help they needed, From a real person who knew what they were doing.”

Beauchamp, a pianist and conductor, shared his interaction with the bot on the X social media platform in a post that has garnered an impressive 1.3 million views.

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

Initially, he requested a joke from the bot after facing difficulties in obtaining parcel information. Subsequently, he prompted the bot to compose a poem addressing the pitfalls of automated customer service. Not stopping there, he even encouraged the bot to use explicit language.

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Beauchamp told ITV television he had still not received the parcel. “I think they might hold it hostage now. I wouldn’t blame them,” he said. “That’s totally on me.”

DPD UK stated that they had effectively employed an AI component in their chat system for several years alongside human customer service. However, an error occurred following a recent system update.

“The AI element was immediately disabled and is currently being updated,” the company said in a statement reported by ITV.