Callers to Washington state hotline press 2 for Spanish and get accented AI English instead

SEATTLE — Press “two” for Spanish ... accent?

For months, callers to the Washington state Department of Licensing who have requested automated service in Spanish have instead heard an AI voice speaking English in a strong Spanish accent. The agency has since apologized and says it's trying to fix the problem.

Washington resident Maya Edwards learned of the AI-accented voice last summer after her Mexican husband tried using the Spanish-language option while seeking information about his driver’s license. He is bilingual but saw that the wait time for speaking to a customer service representative in English was long, so he hit “two” for Spanish.

For Edwards, it was a like a scene out of “ Parks and Recreation,” a mocumentary-style comedy show that satires local government.

“It was hilarious to us in the moment because it was so absurd,” she said Thursday. “But at the same time, it has real accessibility issues for people who call in every day and need to speak in a different language other than English.”

Earlier this month, Edwards called the number again and found the error persisted. She posted a video of the call to TikTok, racking up around 2 million views.

The Washington Department of Licensing said in a statement that it was trying to fix the Spanish option and figure out how it happened in the first place. It noted that the self-service option includes 10 languages and runs on a newer, AI-driven technology. It was not immediately clear if the issue had affected other languages; efforts by The Associated Press to use the phone service in some of the other languages Thursday did not prompt additional accented voices.

“DOL apologizes for the error and to its customers for any inconvenience,” the statement said. “An unfortunate byproduct of expanding services is that DOL found problems with the self-service option.”

The agency declined to share the name of the AI vendor providing the translation service, referring the question to WaTech, the state's interagency IT service. A spokesperson for the agency did not immediately provide the name of the vendor following AP voice and email messages requesting it.

Thursday morning, the call line still put on the voice after a message, in English, acknowledging that the some translation services are no functioning properly.

When an AP reporter followed prompts for Spanish-language options, he was met with an accented English voice accent that would only say numbers in Spanish.

“Your estimated wait time is less than ‘tres’ minutes,” the voice said.