Delivery Firm's AI Chatbot Goes Rogue, Curses at Customer and Criticizes Company

An AI customer service chatbot for international delivery service DPD used profanity, told a joke, wrote poetry about how useless it was, and criticized the company as the "worst delivery firm in the world" after prompting by a frustrated customer. Ashley Beauchamp, a London-based pianist and conductor, according to his website, posted screenshots of the chat conversation to X on Thursday, the same day he said in a comment that the exchange occurred. At the time of publication, his post had gone viral with 1.3 million views, and over 20 thousand likes. The humorous exchange symbolizes bigger issues as artificial intelligence has infiltrated every area of life––from art to education to business––especially with the introduction of publicly available chatbot ChatGPT. Companies have turned to AI to streamline their work, amid an ongoing debate about how effective bots are in replacing humans or whether AI will eventually outsmart us.