Washington state agency removes AI with Spanish-accented English from phone system
The Washington state Department of Licensing has removed foreign language options from its phone system after callers discovered that selecting Spanish would prompt a voice to reply in English, but with a heavy Spanish accent.
The mistake, first reported by The Seattle Times, was caught by Washington resident Maya Edwards, who last week shared the mistake in a TikTok video that has generated more than 300,000 likes and 7,500 comments, such as one judging that the error was “disrespectful and hilarious at the same time.”
The error is widely presumed to be the product of a poorly supervised artificial intelligence system. A spokesperson for the Department of Licensing said in an emailed statement that the mistake was an “unfortunate byproduct of expanding services” in nine additional languages, a representation of “the first, most complex call center phone transition in Washington state.”
“It is intended to better serve more Washingtonians,” the statement reads. “While the cause of the problem is still being evaluated, it appears this technical glitch was the result of a configuration change made by DOL.”
The department concluded by apologizing and noting that it is “closely monitoring the self-service option to ensure the problem doesn’t reappear.”
One reporter who called the department’s phone line on Friday confirmed that foreign language options are no longer available, but that the system is also not functioning properly in English, sometimes routing the caller through an infinite loop of options in the phone tree.
Expanding language options through the use of AI is a common way that state and local governments have sought to improve their digital services. Washington Technology Solutions, the state’s information technology bureau, did not immediately respond to questions, such as why a human did not catch the error before it went live.
