西澳大利亚州政府正就一份关于合并该州三所大学的缺陷报告，向德勤寻求快速退款。该报告包含AI生成的、并不存在的来源引用，以及错误的成本总额。
Western Australia’s government is seeking a fast refund from Deloitte over a flawed report on merging three of the state’s universities. The report contained AI-generated references to sources that do not exist, as well as wrong cost totals.
一位政府发言人告诉《卫报澳大利亚版》，该州非常失望，并已致函德勤要求加快退款。该州为这项研究支付了16.6万澳元。
A government spokesperson told Guardian Australia that the state was very disappointed and had written to Deloitte to speed up the refund. The state paid A$166,000 for the study.
德勤为一项合并西澳大利亚大学、科廷大学和默多克大学的计划撰写了成本效益分析。德勤在报告中表示，它使用生成式AI来帮助收集研究资料、总结信息和校对。
Deloitte wrote the cost-benefit analysis for a plan to merge the University of Western Australia, Curtin University, and Murdoch University. Deloitte said in the report that it used generative AI to help gather research, summarise information, and proofread.
据《泰晤士高等教育》报道，批评者最早在10月早些时候指出了这些捏造的引用，最初源于Reddit上的一篇帖子。当时，德勤称这些是轻微错误，政府要求其修正并重新发布报告。
Critics first flagged the made-up references earlier in October, starting with a post on Reddit, Times Higher Education reported. At the time, Deloitte called them minor errors, and the government told it to fix and reissue the report.
此后，《卫报澳大利亚版》发现报告附录中的金额有误。其中一例是，科廷大学与西澳大学合并的两项成本合计为6.59亿澳元，但报告给出的是3.99亿澳元。TNW尚未核实附录中的数字。
Since then, Guardian Australia has found sums in the report’s appendix that are wrong. In one case, two costs for a Curtin and UWA merger totalled A$659m, but the report gave A$399m. TNW has not checked the appendix figures.
政府表示，已被告知这些错误不会改变报告的建模或结论。该发言人说，德勤将更正这些错误并重新发布报告。德勤未回应《卫报澳大利亚版》的提问。
The government said it had been told the errors do not change the report’s modelling or findings. Deloitte will correct them and reissue the report, the spokesperson said. Deloitte did not respond to Guardian Australia’s questions.
这并非首次。2025年，德勤同意就一份同样包含AI生成错误的44万澳元报告，向澳大利亚联邦政府部分退款。今年，竞争对手毕马威和普华永道也遇到了AI撰写报告的类似问题。
It is not the first time. In 2025, Deloitte agreed to partly refund Australia’s federal government for an A$440,000 report that also contained AI-generated errors. Rival firms KPMG and PwC have faced similar problems with AI-written reports this year.