Deloitte allegedly cited AI-generated research in a million-dollar report for a Canadian provincial government

https://fortune.com/2025/11/25/deloitte-caught-fabricated-ai-generated-research-million-dollar-report-canada-government/

Not the first time they were caught.

401 points · 22 comments · view on lemmy.world

22 Comments

tabarnaski@sh.itjust.works · 65 pts · 266d (1 reply)

Maybe stop doing business with Deloitte for a while?

willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 31 pts · 266d

But they will kick back to me 30% of a fat contract. And when things go south I will blame Deloitte. So why would I change my highly lucrative for me behavior?

I won't.

andrewrgross@slrpnk.net · 54 pts · 266d (2 replies)

Whew.

The thing about these incidents that I find most interesting is that they basically reveal a widely held suspicion among many people that these government contractors are over-crexentialed bullshit artists.

This just shows what we've all suspected: they've been cutting corners, claiming underserved authority, and making up shit for years. But now some folks are checking and reporting on it.

willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 31 pts · 266d (1 reply)

I think these consulting firms exist to help the upper/top management to embezzle money and to shield them from personal responsibility ("Deloitte said so, I could only follow this industry standard guidance, don't ask me why every project has crashed, lol").

TwentySeven@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 265d

Look how well that worked out for Arthur Anderson

magnetosphere@fedia.io · 36 pts · 266d

I hope the province refuses to pay

tgxn@lemmy.tgxn.net · 27 pts · 266d (2 replies)

Yeah fuck these guys wasting our money on this hot garbage.

""The revelation comes on the heels of news last month that Deloitte leveraged AI in a $290,000 report published in July to help the Australian government crack down on welfare. But a researcher flagged hallucinations in the 237-page study, which included references to nonexistent academic research papers and a fabricated quote from a federal court judgment.

In the revised study, which was quietly uploaded to the Australian government’s website, the consulting firm admitted it had used the generative AI language system Azure OpenAI to help create the report.""

j5906@feddit.org · 11 pts · 266d

This is a ~1200$ per page report, from which I guarantee only 30 pages or so have actual content on it.

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 265d

Yeah fuck these guys wasting our money on this hot garbage.

It's ok, we'll just cut cancer research, again.

ji88aja88a@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 266d

lol..they didnt learn from their error with australian government

panda_abyss@lemmy.ca · 15 pts · 265d

I hope we demand a refund and fire them.

What a waste of money, I hate these companies and I hate that our government keeps using them.

I get they’re all scared of fixed costs but at this point how much have we wasted on these companies? They could have hired 7-10 full time employees at $80-$100k for a year for the cost of this one report. They could have hired 4-6 highly qualified professionals for that cost. They could have hired some really good term employees.

How many reports like this are we wasting resources on?

Suburbanl3g3nd@lemmings.world · 14 pts · 266d

Having worked for a state that contracts with Deloitte, this doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

starchylemming@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 266d (1 reply)

Toilette

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 265d

Formerly Douche -Toilette.

bluemoon@piefed.social · 11 pts · 266d

rip em a new one

aesthelete@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 266d

Armand1@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 266d (1 reply)

Still better than the Cass Review.

SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 266d

Aunt Cass?

kent_eh@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 265d

Newfoundland and Labrador is the province involved.

Had to read far too deep into the poorly written article to find that important bit of context.

SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 266d

Scumbags

technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 265d

These creeps finally found a way to automate their bullshit.

Doomsider@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 265d

Too hard to make up bullshit for report so we will have AI make up the bullshit for us.