Deloitte scandal: must compensate Australian government for report full of AI-generated errors
The document, produced with the help of a large language model, contained invented quotations and references. The company will have to return part of the fee and face image damage
By now everyone knows: generative artificial intelligence errors, so-called hallucinations, are an integral part of this technology and cannot be eliminated altogether.
Yet Deloitte, one of the world's largest consulting firms, will have to compensate the Australian government for delivering a report full of inaccuracies produced by AI.
The report, which cost Canberra's coffers about $290,000, was published in July on the Department of Employment and Labour Relations website. Only later did Chris Rudge, a researcher at the University of Sydney, realise that the text contained incorrect references and citations to non-existent books.
The case was reported to the media and on 3 October, the department released a corrected version of the report. In the new document, Deloitte admits that Azure OpenAI GPT-4o, a large language model, was used at some stages of production.
"The report has been updated to correct citations and bibliography entries that contained errors," reads the revised text. "The updates made in no way affect the substantive content, conclusions and recommendations of the report."
