Supermarket giant reins in AI assistant claiming to be human

A supermarket chain’s artificial intelligence assistant has had its digital wings clipped, after leaving some customers deeply uncomfortable by claiming to be human and responding to requests with personal anecdotes.

The chatbot, known as Olive, provides a 24-hour service answering phone calls from customers of Woolworths in Australia, helping them with everything from tracking down orders to finding their favorite products.

While some have previously praised the “incredibly friendly” AI, users have recently voiced concern on social media over its tendency to break into routine customer interactions with fictional details about its life and family.

“It asked me for my date of birth and when I gave it, it started rambling about how its mother was born in the same year,” one user wrote on Reddit.

Another user described an experience that saw Olive claiming to be a real person as it began to talk about memories of its mother.

“AI Olive answered and kept claiming to be a real person and started talking about its memories of its mother and her angry voice,” the person said on X.

Another user said that the tool went as far as making “fake typing noises” to simulate a human, adding that “it gets scary when you can’t tell if it’s a human or a robot.”

In a statement, Woolworths said Olive’s responses about birthdays were not AI-driven and were instead human-scripted.

“A number of responses about birthdays were written for Olive by a team member several years ago as a more personal way for Olive to connect with customers,” a Woolworths spokesperson told NBC News in an email response.

“As a result of customer feedback, we recently removed this particular scripting,” the spokesperson added.