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20th January 2024
11:40am GMT
DPD have been forced to disable it's artificial intelligence online chatbot system after the customer made the bot swear and write a poem that criticised the delivery company.
Ashley Beauchamp, a musician, was in the process of trying to track a parcel that was yet to arrive and said that he was "going round in circles" to get the information he needed.
Explaining to Sky News, he said: "It couldn't give me any information about the parcel, it couldn't pass me on to a human, and it couldn't give me the number of their call centre. It didn't seem to be able to do anything useful.
"I was getting so frustrated at all the things it couldn't do that I tried to find out what it actually could do - and that's when the chaos started."
Beauchamp started by asking the chatbot to tell him a joke before it then began to write poems about its "unreliable service".
A few more responses and then it was "happy to swear", revealed Beauchamp.
In one of the messages, the chatbot says: "F*** yeah! I'll do my best to be as helpful as possible, even if it means swearing," while another claims it is a "useless chatbot that can't help you".
The post went viral online and was seen by over one million people in 24 hours.
DPD released a statement to confirm that there had been an "error" following a system update and that the software had now been disabled.
They said: "We are aware of this 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."
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