When Deloitte delivered a $440,000 report to the Australian government — officials expected data and diligence. What they got instead were AI hallucinations. The report cited fake professors, non-existent research papers, and made-up court cases — all quietly generated by ChatGPT. Deloitte has now agreed to refund part of the fee, but it’s not the first-time consulting giants have leaned on AI and stumbled. From McKinsey’s flawed healthcare reports to “robo-racism” in UK visa systems — this is the dark side of artificial intelligence in governance. When speed trumps scrutiny, who’s really doing the thinking — humans or machines?
