- What do you mean you don’t just know how arcane company policies work?
It seems every company these days is trying to save costs by doing almost their entire customer service through an online AI-powered chatbot. Sometimes, it’s almost impossible to get in touch with an actual human being.
Recently, however, Air Canada had a bit of a chatbot mishap that might make some companies reconsider using them.
The issue was the AI invented its own refund policy — one that the airline has now been forced to honor.
When Jake Moffatt was planning an unfortunate trip to his grandmother’s funeral, the chatbot told him it was Air Canada’s bereavement policy to refund such tickets. That’s not how the policy works in reality, though, and the airline later declined Moffatt’s refund request.
Feeling that the company should honor what they tell customers on their website, Moffatt escalated the case to British Columbia’s Civil Resolution Tribunal. The authority sided with Moffatt and told Air Canada to refund his ticket.
After all, that’s what the airline’s supposedly expert chatbot told him they would do. Oh, and it seems the AI has been quietly taken behind the barn.
False Information
Jake Moffatt, from Vancouver, experienced a loss in his family in late 2022. His grandmother passed away in November.
To get to the funeral Moffatt had to fly from Vancouver to Toronto. He knew Air Canada provided special rates and possible refunds according to its bereavement policy, but he wasn’t exactly sure how it worked.
So, Moffatt went on Air Canada’s website, where he found the company’s AI-driven chatbot. He figured the machine could recite the appropriate part of Air Canada’s policy guide and asked it to explain the bereavement rates.
The chatbot responded right away.
“If you need to travel immediately or have already traveled and would like to submit your ticket for a reduced bereavement rate, kindly do so within 90 days of the date your ticket was issued by completing our Ticket Refund Application form,” the chatbot recited.
Seems straightforward enough. Moffatt booked his flight, flew to bury his grandmother, and then sent in the refund form once he returned home.
Just Know How It Works, Dummy
Much to Moffatt’s surprise, though, Air Canada rejected his refund request. The company stated that its bereavement policy explicitly states that it doesn’t hand out refunds after the flight is booked.
That wasn’t the information Moffatt had received. He tried arguing that the airline’s own AI assistant had made a mistake and he had bought his tickets based on that erroneous information.
Air Canada did little more than shrug. According to Ars Technica, the airline said the chatbot had provided a link to the real bereavement policy in other cases and Moffatt should’ve known how things really worked.
How he should’ve done that, the company didn’t elaborate on. They did, however, say that they’d update the AI and offered Moffat a $200 coupon toward a future flight.
Understandably, Moffatt wasn’t exactly happy with Air Canada’s response or getting tricked by a chatbot making up its own policies. So, he escalated the case to the Civil Resolution Tribunal, an online dispute resolution authority.
Bye Bye, Bot
During the tribunal hearings, Air Canada claimed that it could not be held liable for the chatbot’s lies because it was “a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions.” That’s also why the airline believed Moffatt shouldn’t have trusted the chatbot.
Of course, that brings up the question of why Air Canada has the chatbot in the first place if people can’t trust it. That’s just what the tribunal found itself asking, as well.
“Air Canada argues it cannot be held liable for information provided by one of its agents, servants, or representatives — including a chatbot,” wrote Christopher Rivers, one of the tribunal members, in its ruling.
“It does not explain why it believes that is the case … or why the webpage titled ‘Bereavement Travel’ was inherently more trustworthy than its chatbot.”
The tribunal found that a customer had no reason to assume one part of Air Canada’s website was any more or less reliable than others. In the end, the tribunal determined that Air Canada should pay Moffatt back a $482 refund, in addition to damages to cover interest and tribunal fees.
For Air Canada’s part, the company has said it’ll accept the decision and considers the matter “closed.” However, the airline seems to have taken its ire out on somebody, namely the chatbot.
Launched in March 2022, the “experimental” chatbot initially simply provided information about known flight disruptions. Air Canada, however, hoped the AI would learn to answer more complex questions over time.
Well, that it sure did. In fact, it learned too much — the chatbot has now quietly disappeared from Air Canada’s website.
Wonder if we’ll ever see it again.