DOI :: York student uses AI chatbot | to get parking fine revoked

 

York student uses AI chatbot to get parking fine revoked

BBC

March 30, 2023

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Image source, Millie Houlton

A student has successfully appealed a £60 parking fine by using a letter written by an artificial intelligence chatbot.

When Millie Houlton received the notice from York City Council she said she was tempted to pay rather than spend time compiling a response.

However, the 22-year-old asked ChatGPT to "please help me write a letter to the council, they gave me a parking ticket" and sent it off.

The authority withdrew the fine notice.

Artificial intelligence chatbots are designed to answer questions by finding information and presenting it in a lifelike way.

Miss Houlton said the fine was wrongly issued for parking on her street - as she has a permit to do so.

The York St John University student said she considered stumping up the cash because she was so busy with academic work in the final year of her events and business management degree.

She said: "I was like, 'oh I don't need this fine, I'm a student' but trying to articulate what I wanted to say was pretty difficult so I thought I'll just see if ChatGPT can do it for me.

"I put in all my details about where and when it happened, why it was wrong and my reference for the fine and it came back with this perfectly formed personalised response within minutes."

Miss Houlton said although she had been using the tech for a while, she had begun to use it for social occasions, including organising an Easter egg hunt for her running club around York.

"I explained it was an Easter theme, put in all the locations in that I wanted to go to and gave me riddles, clues and everything."

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