LONDON DAILY ARCHIVE

In another instance, the chatbot refers to itself as a "useless chatbot that can't help you."

DPD's AI chatbot malfunctioned, cursing and criticizing the courier company after a customer encounter. Ashley Beauchamp, a 30-year-old London musician, couldn’t locate his parcel using the bot, and in his frustration started testing its capabilities. The chatbot ended up swearing and composing a derogatory poem about DPD.

21 January 2024 · 14:39 UTC

One of Beauchamp's videos displaying the chatbot's responses went viral, receiving 800,000 views in a day. DPD cited a recent software update as the cause of the issue and has since deactivated the problematic features, working on a fix. Despite the humorous situation, Beauchamp highlighted the underlying concern of ineffective AI leading to customer frustration. DPD is in contact with Beauchamp to sort out his delivery problem.