AI chatbot discovers Laois is cheapest on average for pint of Guinness

“A PINT of plain is your only man” wrote Flann O’Brien, and the cheapest one is in Laois, according to an AI chatbot.

In a new first for artificial intelligence, a chatbot has discovered that Laois is cheapest county on average for a pint of Guinness.

‘Rachel’, an AI chatbot with a north of Ireland accent, surprised publicans nationwide over St. Patrick’s weekend when ‘she’ called them to ask, ‘how much is a pint of Guinness?’, bringing a whole new meaning to the term ‘robocall’.

The AI chatbot’s task was to gather information for the ‘Guinndex’, a new website tracking the cost of a pint of Guinness nationwide. It did so by calling a pub, inquiring about the price, saying thanks, and hanging up.

The system was developed by American AI engineer Matt Cortland. Rachel called more than 3,000 pubs across all 32 counties, of which 2,000 answered the call and over 1,000 gave a price.

Laois was the cheapest county on average for a pint at just €5.38. Dublin was the most expensive at approximately €6.75. The national average was €5.95.

Cortland told the Journal he tried different accents before settling on Rachel’s Northern Irish voice: “I tried an American voice, that was a no. I tried an Irish voice as well and it just felt a bit off. This one just worked,” he said.

Cortland implemented repeat testing with AI language model Claude and attempted a smaller batch of calls before progressing to thousands of pubs. Most publicans were not aware they were speaking to an AI.

Cortland said that, although he had not programmed the chatbot to inform publicans it was AI, he was conscious of crossing a boundary. “There’s a difference between calling a person on their phone and calling a business that has a public number”, he told the Journal.

‘The Guinndex’ website is open to the public and accepts user submissions to keep it up to date.