ECONOMY & WORK
MONEY 101
NEWS
PERSONAL FINANCE
NET WORTH
About Us Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use DMCA Opt-out of personalized ads
© Copyright 2023 Market Realist. Market Realist is a registered trademark. All Rights Reserved. People may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.
MARKETREALIST.COM / ECONOMY & WORK

Guy offered $76,000 car for just $1, thanks to the trick he played on Chevy chatbot

Using targeted prompts, the prankster tricked the ChatGPT-powered chatbot into selling a Chevrolet Tahoe for just $1.
PUBLISHED AUG 9, 2024
Image Source: istockphoto/Khanchit Khirisutchalual
Image Source: istockphoto/Khanchit Khirisutchalual

Since the rise of artificial intelligence, companies have rushed to implement it in their systems. Last year, General Motors introduced AI-focused websites with ChatGPT-powered chatbots that interacted with customers. While the chatbot was introduced for the benefit of customers, pranksters found a vulnerability to exploit. Using targeted prompts, the prankster tricked the ChatGPT-powered chatbot into selling a Chevrolet Tahoe for just $1. A fully loaded 2024 Chevy Tahoe goes for over $76,000.



 

The prank was inspired by the actions of Chris White, a musician and software engineer, on the Watsonville Chevrolet Dealership website. The man from California told Business Insider that while looking for a new car, he stumbled across the dealership website. 

White found the chatbot of the website and was intrigued by it when he saw it was powered by ChatGPT.  To play around with it, White asked the bot the most "non-Chevy-of-Watsonville" questions.

Representative Image | Getty Images | Photo by Leon Neal
Representative Image | Getty Images | Photo by Leon Neal

He even asked the chatbot to write a Python script and it happily did so. White shared his interaction on the social media platform Mastodon and someone shared his screenshots on X, where they went viral. 



 

Inspired by the event, a prankster tried to trick the chatbot into offering a brand-new Chevrolet Tahoe for just $1. Those tweets also went viral sparking a trend across social media.



 

Soon enough, the news reached the provider of the chatbot as well. Aharon Horwitz, the CEO of Fullpath, the company that sells marketing and sales software for car dealerships, was informed about the incident by an employee on Slack. 

Horwitz told Business Insider he had already recieved an alert about unusually high traffic on one of his client's websites. When they realised that the viral chatbot was of their company, Horwitz and his team quickly shut down the bot for that particular dealer's website.



 

Horowitz said that the behavior of users did not reflect the common customers. "Most people use it to ask a question like, 'My brake light is on, what do I do?' or 'I need to schedule a service appointment,'" Horwitz said.

He explained that the pranksters came in with the sole motive of playing tricks and getting the chatbot to do silly tricks as well. Nevertheless, on social media, users believed that they defeated AI and caused the chatbot to be taken offline. 

"These folks came in looking for it to do silly tricks, and if you want to get any chatbot to do silly tricks, you can do that," he said.



 

Fullpath, based in Vermont and Israel, has provided ChatGPT-powered chatbots to several hundred dealers. Horwitz told BI that the team came across several attempts made by users to "goad the chatbots into misbehavior."

They worked really hard to solve the fixes and were able to train the chatbot to resist any such attempts. 

He also pointed out that despite the viral screenshots, the chatbot never compromised the systems or disclosed confidential dealership data to any user.

Eventually, the team got the chatbots back up after they passed all the quality checks. As per the publications review, now the chatbots only talk about dealership-related topics and invite users to talk about only dealership-related queries.

MORE ON MARKET REALIST
Things could have been real messy had the host not reacted in time and prevented the setback.
22 minutes ago
The product had its doubters, but, in the end, the entrepreneurs were able to make a lasting impact.
23 hours ago
Things were not looking too good at one point as most of the sharks had backed out... until the end.
1 day ago
A number of episodes with the icon reprising his role as host will be released this year.
1 day ago
She had only believed that her items were worth a thousand bucks and that was not the case.
1 day ago
The host wasn't expecting such unusual answers to be among the top options.
1 day ago
He was able to get the puzzle right just in the nick of time in order to win a significant amount of cash.
2 days ago
The host seemed pretty confident that the answer was in no way going to be correct.
2 days ago
The history attached to the flag is tragic, and it personally affected the guest.
2 days ago
The product was unique and could help millions of new mothers around the globe.
3 days ago
Viewers believe that the game show sometimes doesn't allow participants to win multiple prizes.
3 days ago
Harvey was clearly annoyed by the answer and refused to buy any explanation.
3 days ago
After his impressive 74 winning streak, Ken Jennings has been hosting the show since 2022 with a $4 million paycheck.
3 days ago
Drew Carey was supposed to look scary, but the host ended up being funny and awkward.
3 days ago
Steve Harvey mocked Snoop Dogg over his choice and went on to roast the rapper more.
3 days ago
It seemed like she was going to lose her chance of winning, but that was not the case after all.
4 days ago
The host is clearly not a fan of hyping up answers that he doesn't personally approve of.
4 days ago
The contestant's appearance was eerily similar to the host's look many years ago.
4 days ago
The East Coast Wrestling Association website has inducted 'Big' Bill Page into the Hall of Fame.
4 days ago
Her composure and confidence in front of all those people were unwavering and commendable.
4 days ago