Post
Deloitte Australia writes government report with AI — and fake references
‘there is not much other explanation’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olG8wvK8SpA&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20250827-softbank-needs-openai-to-stay-alive-no-matter-what - podcast
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/08/28/deloitte-australia-writes-government-report-with-ai-and-fake-references/ - text
Is a report like this from a company like Deloitte covered by the legal requirements for chartered accountancy? I’m not sure about Australia but making up or misrepresenting citations like this typically comes with some liability, ranging from losing chartered status (and therefore not being legally allowed to practice) up to prison time for fraud. I really hope users of bullshit generators start being held legally accountable for their output soon.
@david_chisnall no, see disclaimer on p2 of the PDF (linked in the blog post)
> The Services provided under this engagement were advisory in nature and have not been conducted in accordance with the standards issued by the Australian Auditing and Assurance Standards Board and consequently no opinions or conclusions under these standards are expressed. The matters raised in this report are only those which came to Deloitte’s attention during the course of performing the assessment and are not necessarily a comprehensive statement of all the weaknesses that exist or improvements that might be made.
> We believe that the statements made in this report are accurate, but no warranty of completeness, accuracy, or reliability is given in relation to the statements and representations made by, and the information and documentation provided by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. We have not attempted to verify these sources independently unless otherwise noted within the report.
> We have not been engaged to provide any legal advice or interpretation of law and legal opinions, and our report should not be relied upon as legal advice.
so it was created to serve a similar use case to a chocolate teapot
I wonder if the folks who commissioned it are aware that it would be delivered under 'do not use this for any purpose terms'. Perhaps there is some government financial accountability office in Australia that can investigate who agreed to spend public money on a report that cannot be used for any purpose.
i meant it that the use case is to be a chocolate teapot. you commission something that was always meant to have the truth value of chatbot output so you can tick a box.
@david_chisnall the only effective pushback is that deloitte will get their rep slightly tarnished and depts will demand, not no chatbots, but that the provider certifiy that chatbot output has been checked
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