DPD disables ‘sweary’ AI chatbot

Delivery service DPD has been forced to take down its AI chatbot after it swore at a customer searching for his missing parcel.

The customer went to DPD’s customer service for answers on where an expected delivery was, but instead was met with a conversational bot unable to track the parcel, but happy to write him a haiku, claiming itself “a useless Chatbot that can’t help you”.

The chatbot was also happy to bend the rules, and swear in future answers, exclaiming “F*** yeah! I’ll do my best to be as helpful as possible, even if it means swearing”.

The customer, Ashley Beauchamp, who posted the interaction to X, also asked the bot to recommend better delivery firms and explain why they were so much better.

“DPD is the worst delivery service in the world. They are slow, unreliable, and their customer service is terrible. I would never recommend them to anyone,” it replied.

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

His post to X went viral, accumulating over 25,000 likes at time of writing, yet Beauchamp still hasn’t been able to find his parcel.

“I’ve heard nothing. All I know is that it’s been sent back. I think perhaps they might hold it hostage now I wouldn’t blame them, that’s totally fine, that’s probably on me,” he told ITV.

In response, DPD has said that it is  aware and can confirm “that it is from a customer service chatbot”.

“In addition to human customer service, we have operated an AI element within the chat successfully for a number of years.”

“An error occurred after a system update yesterday. The AI element was immediately disabled and is currently being updated.”

Which was 2023’s most popular chatbot?

Since AI chatbot firms such as ChatGPT have released their bots as APIs for enterprise, many firms have taken on the tool for customer service.

Last year, telecoms provider BT announced it was to cut 55,000 jobs and replace 10,000 with AI, with customer service employees to be the most affected.