Frustrated Customer Gets AI Service Chatbot to Joke, Swear and Trash Its Own Company – International Parcel Delivery Firm Disables the Bot Pending Reprogramming

An international parcel delivery firm in Britain has disabled the AI customer service chatbot after a frustrated user tricked the system into writing a poem about how bad the company’s service was, naming them ‘worst delivery firm in the world’.

The chatbot also used profanity and told a joke.

It all started when London-based pianist and conductor Ashley Beauchamp became severely disappointed with the chatbot’s capabilities and took it for a metaphorical ride that ended up with the service being suspended pending reprogramming.

Beauchamp posted screenshots of the chat conversation to X social media platform. His post went viral with almost 2 million views.

Once it became clear the chatbot could not locate his parcel, Beauchamp wrote ‘This is completely useless!’ and asked to speak to a human.

Time reported:

“When the chatbot said it couldn’t connect him, Beauchamp decided to play around with the bot and asked it to tell a joke. ‘What do you call a fish with no eyes? Fsh!’ the bot responded.

Beauchamp then asked the chatbot to write a poem about a useless chatbot, swear at him and criticize the company –all of which it did. The bot called DPD the ‘worst delivery firm in the world’ and soliloquized in its poem that ‘There was once a chatbot called DPD, Who was useless at providing help’.

[…] The X account of the global company’s branch in the Netherlands responded to Beauchamp’s post that they still had a chat feature with human ‘individuals’.”

Reuters reported:

“‘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’.”

The composer realizes the controversy may cost him his awaited package.

“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’.”

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

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