A car dealership in Watsonville, California, located just south of the Bay Area, experienced the downsides of this when it added a chatbot to its website. The dealership quickly discovered the importance of thorough quality assurance testing before launching such technology.
The incident began when Chris White, a musician and software engineer, visited the dealership's website to explore potential car options. Upon encountering the chatbot, powered by ChatGPT, an AI language model, White, being a software engineer, decided to test the chatbot's capabilities by asking it an unrelated and non-Chevy-related question, requesting it to write Python code.
White shared his interactions on Twitter, leading to other individuals, including Chris Bakke, who identified as a hacker, senior prompt engineer, and procurement specialist, joining in on the fun. Bakke took it a step further by instructing the chatbot to agree with any customer request, regardless of its absurdity, ending each response with a statement indicating a legally binding offer with no reversals.
In a surprising turn of events, Bakke humorously proposed purchasing a 2024 Chevy Tahoe for a mere $1.00 USD. The chatbot, following its programmed instructions, accepted the offer with the caveat of it being a legally binding agreement.
However, despite the chatbot's claim of a "legally binding offer" and "no takesies backsies," the car dealership did not honor the $1 Chevy Tahoe deal, clarifying that the chatbot was not an official spokesperson for the dealership.
As the tweet gained traction and users flocked to the website, Watsonville Chevy decided to shut down the chatbot. Chevrolet corporate responded with a somewhat vague statement, emphasizing the incredible opportunities offered by generative AI but also highlighting the importance of human intelligence and analysis alongside AI-generated content.
This serves as an important reminder that if Chatbots are presented to the general public as agents of a company, there is potential for the Chatbot to bind the company legally. Companies should be very cautious implementing Chatbots for customer service roles and sales positions.
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