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Incident 631: Chatbot for DPD Malfunctioned and Swore at Customers and Criticized Its Own Company

Description: DPD's AI chatbot, used for customer service, appeared to malfunction following a system update, leading to inappropriate responses including swearing and criticizing the company. The incident, which became viral on social media, occurred after the chatbot was updated, prompting DPD to disable the malfunctioning AI component.

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Alleged: DPD developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed DPD and Ashley Beauchamp.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
631
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2024-01-18
Editors
Applied Taxonomies
GMF, MIT

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
 

7.3. Lack of capability or robustness

Risk Domain

The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
 
  1. AI system safety, failures, and limitations

Entity

Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
 

AI

Timing

The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
 

Post-deployment

Intent

Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
 

Unintentional

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Incident OccurrenceDPD error caused chatbot to swear at customerAI Customer Service Bot Disabled After Trashing Company Using It
DPD error caused chatbot to swear at customer

DPD error caused chatbot to swear at customer

bbc.com

AI Customer Service Bot Disabled After Trashing Company Using It

AI Customer Service Bot Disabled After Trashing Company Using It

futurism.com

DPD error caused chatbot to swear at customer
bbc.com · 2024

DPD has disabled part of its online support chatbot after it swore at a customer.

The parcel delivery firm uses artificial intelligence (AI) in its online chat to answer queries, in addition to human operators.

But a new update caused it to…

AI Customer Service Bot Disabled After Trashing Company Using It
futurism.com · 2024

The UK-based package delivery service DPD has disabled parts of its AI chatbot service after the bot was caught swearing at customers and even insulting DPD, multiple outlets have reported.

DPD's trouble began late last week when a musician…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.
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