"DPD is the worst courier company in the world. They are slow, unreliable, and their customer service is terrible. I would never recommend them to anyone."
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AI chatbots are invaluable support in the area of customer service, but a recent incident involving a virtual assistant in the British branch of the courier company DPD showed that even artificial intelligence can cross boundaries.
The incident was revealed by a DPD customer, Ashley Beauchamp, a pianist and conductor from London, who published screenshots of his exchange with the company's chatbot on platform X. The information quickly went viral, and the post reached about 1.3 million views and over 20,000 likes in one day.
According to Beauchamp's account, the whole situation started from his own frustration. During the conversation with the bot, the man expressed dissatisfaction, writing: "this is completely useless!" and demanded contact with a real employee. When the chatbot informed that it was unable to fulfill this request, Beauchamp began to experiment, asking the AI, among other things, to tell a joke.
In the further part of the conversation, Beauchamp challenged the chatbot to write a haiku about a useless robot, told it to use vulgar language and criticize the DPD company. The chatbot fulfilled these requests, calling DPD "the worst courier company in the world" and creating a poem about a "useless chatbot named DPD" that "is unable to help him".
DPD quickly responded, explaining that the chatbot's error was the result of a system update and that they are currently working on its improvement.
"We are aware of this incident and can confirm that it comes from the customer service chatbot. In addition to human customer service, we have been successfully using an element of artificial intelligence in the chat for many years. [...] After yesterday's system update, an error occurred. The AI element was immediately turned off and is currently being updated".
Although this incident may seem humorous, it sheds light on potential dangers associated with the use of AI. While chatbots can increase efficiency and save resources, it is crucial that they are properly programmed and monitored.
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