Deloitte charged the Australian government $440,000 for a report it compiled using ChatGPT

The steadfast admitted the study contained superior errors, immoderate caused by its usage of AI successful drafting. The Australian Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) confirmed Deloitte volition refund the contract’s last outgo erstwhile the process is formalized.

The report, commissioned successful December 2024, assessed the strategy utilized to enforce sanctions connected unemployed radical failing to conscionable programme obligations. Deloitte claimed to find problems specified arsenic “lack of transparency” linking the strategy to applicable laws and “technical malfunctions,” suggesting the strategy assumed noncompliance by default.

Published July 4, the study was soon criticized erstwhile Australian Financial Review exposed fake oregon nonexistent sources and incorrect citations. Dr. Christopher Rundj, from the University of Sydney, called parts of the papers “hallucinations” — a word utilized erstwhile AI fills gaps with invented information.

Rather than region mendacious citations, Deloitte replaced them with new—but arsenic unsupported ones, raising doubts astir the report’s foundation. In its revised version, Deloitte said it made “corrections to footnotes and references,” but insisted the halfway findings and recommendations stay unchanged.

A ministry spokesperson said the “substance” of the autarkic valuation is intact. Deloitte disclosed that immoderate sections were produced “with the assistance of an Azure OpenAI GPT‑4o AI tool, licensed by the ministry and tally successful a unafraid Microsoft environment.” However, Deloitte denied the mistakes were caused by AI and maintained the updates did not impact the report’s content.

Labor Senator Deborah O’Neill sharply criticized the episode, stating, “It seems AI did astir of the work. Deloitte has a occupation with quality intelligence.” She called it “sad if it weren’t truthful embarrassing” and argued that parties contracting with specified firms indispensable cognize whether the enactment is done by humans oregon algorithms.