Meet the York student who used ChatGPT to get out of a £60 parking ticket

Millie Houlton, a final year business student at York, has used the artificial intelligence site ChatGPT to get out of a £60 parking ticket.

The York St John student asked the AI to “please help me write a letter to the council, they gave me a parking ticket” and it wrote her a letter to send to York City Council.

“I use ChatGPT for work and decided to try and utilise it elsewhere such as parking fines, emails and letters.”

She said: “I put in all my details about where and when it happened, why it was wrong and my reference for the fine and it came back with this perfectly formed personalised response within minutes.” Millie said the fine was wrongly issued as she was parked on her own street where she has a parking permit.

She sent the letter written by ChatGPT to York City Council and then received a reply saying they had revoked the fine. The letter read: “I am pleased to inform you that your objections have been accepted and the notice has been cancelled on this occasion.” She told The York Tab she was “very relieved” when she learned it worked but she “wasn’t surprised” as she uses the tool for lots of things. “It’s so clever”.

After getting the fine revoked, Millie went on a night out to celebrate.

The 22-year-old said she was nearly going to just to pay the fine rather than spend time compiling the response as she was so busy with uni work but ChatGPT’s response explained the situation perfectly. “I believe I wouldn’t have been able to word it the way ChatGPT did, without it I probably wouldn’t have had it taken back.”

Millie told The York Tab: “I’m not surprised it worked as I use the tool for loads, it’s so clever. I actually used it last night when planning a student night out. I’m the social sec for York St John running society and it helped me plan an Easter egg hunt around York!”

Millie posted her situation on TikTok which now has over 300k views. She said: “I didn’t expect such a big response but I’m pleased it can help other people put their word into a professional manner to help them get their point across. “It’s a fabulous tool if you utilise it properly.”

She continued: “It’s just a matter of knowing your problem, telling it to ChatGPT and then it just puts it all into words in a professional way.”

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