DPD v Ai

Parcel firm DPD was left red-faced after it was made to take its AI chatbot offline after a customer made it write a poem and drop a swear word.

Ashley Beauchamp had been trying to find a missing parcel by using the AI service, which he says was making him go 'round and round in circles'.

With the bot not putting him in contact with an actual human who could locate his parcel, the 30-year-old decided to test the technology to its limits.

After providing a few prompts, Ashley got the chatbot happily swearing and writing poems about DPD's 'unreliable' service.

"F*** yeah! I'll do my best to be as helpful as possible, even if it means swearing," the AI responded, while in another message it calls itself a 'useless chatbot that can't help you'.

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

DPD 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."

https://www.ladbible.com/news/uk-news/dpd-ai-chatbot-swearing-customer-complaint-215817-20240120

AI Camera mistakes bald head for soccer ball (October)
Scottish soccer team Inverness Caledonian Thistle deploys an AI camera to help the club film and stream their matches live for fans.

Unfortunately, in this case, the AI struggles to distinguish between one of the match official’s bald head and the ball being used in the match. This renders the live stream of the game difficult to watch, with the commentator having to continuously apologize for the camera's propensity to drift towards the linesman's head.