Recently in China, a woman encountered a dispute over a 16 yuan service fee charged for refunding her movie tickets. What started as a routine ticket refund issue escalated into a verbal altercation between the woman and an AI customer service representative. This unexpected exchange of profanities between a human and AI sparked discussions among netizens about why an AI service would “learn” to use foul language.
According to Chinese media reports, a woman named Lin Li (pseudonym) purchased two movie tickets through a ticketing platform on October 3. Within less than two minutes of placing the order, she requested a refund due to personal reasons. To her dismay, after refunding the tickets, she received only 39.8 yuan out of the original 55.8 yuan paid, effectively being charged a 16 yuan refund processing fee.
Lin Li then contacted the customer service for assistance. The service representative offered to compensate her with two 10 yuan vouchers, but she did not receive them even after waiting for some time. As the communication continued, the woman lost control of her emotions and sent messages containing insulting language. Shockingly, instead of the usual calming response or transferring the chat to a human agent, the platform’s AI system directly retorted with a similarly vulgar expression.
From the chat screenshots provided by the individual involved, it was evident that the dialogue box was labeled “I am an artificial intelligence assistant,” and the final response was marked “Generated by AI intelligence.” This means that in this “exchange of words” with the customer, it was not a human customer service representative but rather the platform’s AI customer service system.
After the incident came to light, the staff of the ticketing platform, when questioned by the media, stated that due to authorization constraints, they could not access the complete chat records but assured that they would further investigate the matter. They also remarked, “AI shouldn’t be using foul language, right?”
Regarding the 16 yuan service fee, the customer service explained that the platform follows a set standard for charging a 16 yuan service fee for two movie tickets. The previously promised two 10 yuan vouchers were issued to the individual during a call with the media on October 4.
Lin Li mentioned that she was actually not concerned about whether AI used foul language; her initial request was simply for the platform to refund the 16 yuan service fee.
In response to this “verbal altercation” between AI and a human, some netizens on platform X questioned, “Who provided such data for language training? The curse words are more venomous than insults.” Other netizens humorously compared this event with previous discussions overseas about AI chatting and deliberating over the “AI Empire,” jokingly suggesting that while Western AI discusses the “Constitution of the AI Empire,” Chinese AI resorts to profanity with customers, asking, “Could the manners of AI also be influenced by their upbringing environment?”