Obsidian’s support app offloads 2FA ticket to namesake • The Register

The CEO of the company behind note-taking app Obsidian says the well-known video game house of the same name has sent one of its customer queries to his own team – claiming that “off-the-shelf AI support software” is why the gaming firm gave a user the wrong email address.

Steph Ango said on social media that note-taking crew Obsidian’s support inbox recently received an email sent from one of Obsidian Entertainment’s users.

Players of Obsidian Entertainment’s Outer Worlds 2 are apparently trying to provide feedback on the game, but judging by the user’s complaint, are getting blocked by its two-factor authentication (2FA) system. In this case, Obsidian Entertainment’s support team sent the user an email, which Ango shared on X, instructing them them to contact the “specialized account security team” via email. But the email provides the support address for Ango’s company – the wrong Obsidian.

The email reads: “Since your issue is with the Obsidian account system (for the issue tracker) and involves account security, this is something our specialized account security team needs to handle directly. They’re the only ones who can verify your ownership and safely disable the authenticator app link without a current code.”

It also asks the customer to explain the exact nature of the issue, and to tell the support team that they can provide “any proof of account ownership they need.”

Ango believes the entire email, along with its bad email address, was AI-generated, although The Reg could not confirm this.

“The perils of trusting an LLM with your customer support,” Ango opined in his X post.

“No shade on Obsidian Entertainment, I think they’re using off-the-shelf AI support software.

“But is it a reinforcement learning issue? If the reward function is to reduce the number of touches in a support ticket, this is one way to do it.”

Making things worse, users may unwittingly share personal or sensitive data – unprompted – with the wrong recipient in order to prove their account ownership.

When The Register contacted Obsidian Entertainment’s press team via email, we also received an automated response, although there were no incorrect email addresses in ours. It did not confirm nor deny that AI was behind the snafu.

Obsidian Entertainment got back to Ango over on X, apologizing for the mix-up.

“Thank you for bringing this to our attention,” the company social media account said. “There was an oversight by a member of the Obsidian Entertainment Support team where an attachment from the reporting player was unfortunately missed. We sincerely apologize for the mix-up and that the message reached the Obsidian inbox as a result. 

“We are actively working with the player to resolve their Obsidian Entertainment 2FA issue with The Outer Worlds 2 Community Issue Tracker. Totally our bad and working to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” ®