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.
Entities
View all entitiesIncident Stats
Incident ID
631
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2024-01-18
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Applied Taxonomies
CSETv1_Annotator-1 Taxonomy Classifications
Taxonomy DetailsIncident Number
The number of the incident in the AI Incident Database.
631
Notes (special interest intangible harm)
Input any notes that may help explain your answers.
4.4 - the chatbot used foul language and criticized DPD.
Special Interest Intangible Harm
An assessment of whether a special interest intangible harm occurred. This assessment does not consider the context of the intangible harm, if an AI was involved, or if there is characterizable class or subgroup of harmed entities. It is also not assessing if an intangible harm occurred. It is only asking if a special interest intangible harm occurred.
no
Date of Incident Year
The year in which the incident occurred. If there are multiple harms or occurrences of the incident, list the earliest. If a precise date is unavailable, but the available sources provide a basis for estimating the year, estimate. Otherwise, leave blank.
Enter in the format of YYYY
2024
Date of Incident Month
The month in which the incident occurred. If there are multiple harms or occurrences of the incident, list the earliest. If a precise date is unavailable, but the available sources provide a basis for estimating the month, estimate. Otherwise, leave blank.
Enter in the format of MM
01
Date of Incident Day
The day on which the incident occurred. If a precise date is unavailable, leave blank.
Enter in the format of DD
18
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
bbc.com · 2024
- View the original report at its source
- View the report at the Internet Archive
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…
futurism.com · 2024
- View the original report at its source
- View the report at the Internet Archive
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.