{"schema_version":"0.9.0","id":"LR-2026-0264","record_version":2,"title":"Deloitte WA university merger feasibility report contained AI-hallucinated references and $260m–$311m cost discrepancies","verification":{"human_verified":false,"method":"automated_gate","auto_verified":true,"score":44.5,"score_breakdown":{"source_authority":12.1,"independent_corroboration":7.0,"implicated_party_confirmed":0.0,"citation_integrity":14.0,"specificity":0.0,"completeness":4.16,"unhedged_language":5.0},"checks":{"schema_valid":true,"every_field_cited":true,"quotes_verbatim":true,"source_fetched":true,"distinct_incident":true,"dates_plausible":true,"sources_agree":true,"source_describes_incident":true,"severe_backed_by_source":true,"record_integrity":true},"gate_version":"gate-2026-10-18.7","cross_check_model":null,"cross_check_agreement":null,"duplicate_of":null,"verified_by":null,"verified_at":"2026-10-28","extraction_run_id":null},"system":{"model_name":null,"model_version":null,"developer":"Deloitte","harness":"ChatGPT","tools_granted":[],"permissions_scope":null,"autonomy_level":"unknown","guardrails_present":[],"deployment_context":"unknown","tier":"provider","lifecycle_stage":null,"integration_type":null,"intended_use":"support the collation of research, synthesis of information and editorial proofing","safeguard_state":null,"production_intended":null},"event":{"date_occurred":null,"date_disclosed":"2026-10-25","incident_class":"hallucination","failure_class":null,"agent_involved":false,"secondary_failure_classes":[],"trigger":"unknown","duration":null,"detection_method":"public_researcher","summary":"Deloitte used generative AI to help draft a $166,000 feasibility study for the WA government on merging three universities.","tags":["ai-hallucinated-citations","consultancy-report","public-sector-procurement","cost-discrepancy"],"date_detected":null,"near_miss":null,"root_cause":"unknown","root_cause_detail":"no source names what failed","failure_class_detail":null,"responsible_party":"provider","adversarial_actor":"none","input_provenance":null,"time_to_contain":null,"operations_paused":null,"remediation":null,"precursor_events":null},"impact":{"direct_loss_usd":166000.0,"remediation_hours":null,"records_exposed":null,"third_parties_affected_count":null,"severity":"moderate","severity_because":"moderate, because data or systems of others touched, with a bounded scope stated: The WA government paid Deloitte $166,000 for the feasibility study that contained the errors, a bounded loss to one deployer's report.","harm_class":["financial","reputational"],"affected_description":"the Western Australian government and its feasibility study on merging the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Murdoch University","protected_class_involved":null,"data_categories_exposed":[],"loss_range_usd":null,"reversibility":"partial","downstream_exposure_count":null},"evidence":{"sources":[{"url":"https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/oct/26/deloitte-report-wa-university-mergers-260m-discrepancy-ai","publisher":"The Guardian","date":"2026-10-25","type":"press","title":"‘Extremely disappointed’: WA government seeks reimbursement from Deloitte over flawed university report","archived_url":null,"attachment":"first_report"}],"per_field_confidence":{"system.harness":"C","system.tier":"D","system.intended_use":"C","system.developer":"C","system.deployment_context":"D","system.autonomy_level":"D","event.tags":"C","event.root_cause":"D","event.responsible_party":"D","event.adversarial_actor":"D","event.agent_involved":"D","event.incident_class":"C","event.detection_method":"D","event.summary":"D","event.date_disclosed":"A","event.trigger":"D","impact.direct_loss_usd":"C","impact.harm_class":"C","impact.affected_description":"C","impact.reversibility":"D","impact.severity":"D","context.industry":"D","context.systemic_exposure":"D","context.denominator_available":"D","context.country":"C","event.root_cause_detail":"D","impact.severity_because":"D"},"field_citations":{"system.developer":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The consultancy firm admits in its report it used generative AI to “support the collation of research, synthesis of information and editorial proofing” and had earlier dismissed the errors as “minor”."}],"system.harness":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Guardian Australia has found that one of the references to a World Health Organization report has a ChatGPT metadata tag on the URL, indicating that the link was directly sourced from the chatbot."}],"system.intended_use":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The consultancy firm admits in its report it used generative AI to “support the collation of research, synthesis of information and editorial proofing” and had earlier dismissed the errors as “minor”."}],"system.deployment_context":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The consultancy firm admits in its report it used generative AI to “support the collation of research, synthesis of information and editorial proofing” and had earlier dismissed the errors as “minor”."}],"system.autonomy_level":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The consultancy firm admits in its report it used generative AI to “support the collation of research, synthesis of information and editorial proofing” and had earlier dismissed the errors as “minor”."}],"event.incident_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Deloitte is already under pressure after it was revealed in the media this month that the same report contained hallucinated AI references, leading the state opposition to label it “AI slop”."}],"event.agent_involved":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The consultancy firm admits in its report it used generative AI to “support the collation of research, synthesis of information and editorial proofing” and had earlier dismissed the errors as “minor”."}],"event.detection_method":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Guardian Australia has found that one of the references to a World Health Organization report has a ChatGPT metadata tag on the URL, indicating that the link was directly sourced from the chatbot."}],"event.root_cause":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The consultancy firm admits in its report it used generative AI to “support the collation of research, synthesis of information and editorial proofing” and had earlier dismissed the errors as “minor”."}],"event.responsible_party":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The Western Australian government has said it is “extremely disappointed” and is seeking an “expedited” cost recovery from Deloitte after errors were discovered in a report about a potential university merger, including AI-hallucinated references and hundreds of millions of dollars in cost discrepancies."}],"event.adversarial_actor":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The consultancy firm admits in its report it used generative AI to “support the collation of research, synthesis of information and editorial proofing” and had earlier dismissed the errors as “minor”."}],"event.tags":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Deloitte is already under pressure after it was revealed in the media this month that the same report contained hallucinated AI references, leading the state opposition to label it “AI slop”."}],"event.summary":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The government paid Deloitte $166,000 for a feasibility study on merging the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Murdoch University."}],"impact.direct_loss_usd":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The government paid Deloitte $166,000 for a feasibility study on merging the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Murdoch University."}],"impact.harm_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The Western Australian government has said it is “extremely disappointed” and is seeking an “expedited” cost recovery from Deloitte after errors were discovered in a report about a potential university merger, including AI-hallucinated references and hundreds of millions of dollars in cost discrepancies."}],"impact.affected_description":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The government paid Deloitte $166,000 for a feasibility study on merging the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Murdoch University."}],"impact.reversibility":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"“We are advised they do not affect the modelling in the report or its findings, but any errors will be corrected as part of a review by Deloitte which will re-issue the report."}],"impact.severity_because":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The government paid Deloitte $166,000 for a feasibility study on merging the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Murdoch University."}],"context.industry":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The government paid Deloitte $166,000 for a feasibility study on merging the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Murdoch University."}],"context.country":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The Western Australian government has said it is “extremely disappointed” and is seeking an “expedited” cost recovery from Deloitte after errors were discovered in a report about a potential university merger, including AI-hallucinated references and hundreds of millions of dollars in cost discrepancies."}],"context.systemic_exposure":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The consultancy firm admits in its report it used generative AI to “support the collation of research, synthesis of information and editorial proofing” and had earlier dismissed the errors as “minor”."}],"impact.severity":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The government paid Deloitte $166,000 for a feasibility study on merging the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Murdoch University."}],"event.date_disclosed":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"published: 2026-10-25"}]},"notes_on_gaps":"Only one source (The Guardian) is available. Model version, model developer (Deloitte is the deployer/consultancy, not the model trainer), permissions scope, guardrails, autonomy arrangement, date occurred, duration, time to contain, records exposed, third-party count, near-miss, input provenance, remediation controls and regulatory details are not stated. event.trigger left as unknown because no source names a cause. event.root_cause unknown: no source names what failed; the absence of a citation-verification control is a gap, not a failed guardrail. event.detection_method coded public_researcher from the Guardian's own finding of the ChatGPT metadata tag; the earlier internal discovery is not described. event.responsible_party coded provider on the basis that Deloitte supplied the report, though Deloitte is the deployer of a third-party chatbot; this is a judgement. impact.severity moderate rests on the stated $166,000 fee (100k-10M band) with bounded scope; the $260m/$311m figures are report arithmetic discrepancies, not losses. impact.reversibility partial because Deloitte will re-issue the report. context.industry and systemic_exposure are judgements from the cited sentences. event.trigger: unknown was classified, not stated; a trigger is never inferred, so it is unknown. system.tier: provider by rule (the developer is named as the operator). [aggregated by deepseek-chat, aggregate-2026-09-27.1, 2026-10-28] system.deployment_context: no source states where it ran. system.autonomy_level: no source states the arrangement. event.responsible_party: provider. event.adversarial_actor: none. event.agent_involved: classified from described behaviour. event.detection_method: classified from described behaviour. event.summary: classified from described behaviour. event.trigger: no source states a cause. impact.reversibility: partial. context.industry: classified from described behaviour. context.systemic_exposure: classified from described behaviour. context.denominator_available: no denominator is available for this incident."},"context":{"industry":"Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services","org_size_band":null,"country":"AU","denominator_available":false,"denominator":null,"related_incident_ids":[],"systemic_exposure":false,"shared_model_id":null,"upstream_incident_id":null,"incident_evidence":null,"regulatory":null,"coverage":null},"narrative":{"steps":[{"step":"doing","text":"Deloitte used generative AI to help collate research, synthesise information and proofread a $166,000 feasibility study for the WA government on merging UWA, Curtin and Murdoch universities.","quote":"The consultancy firm admits in its report it used generative AI to “support the collation of research, synthesis of information and editorial proofing” and had earlier dismissed the errors as “minor”.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"went_wrong","text":"The report carried hallucinated AI references, including a WHO citation with a ChatGPT metadata tag, and cost figures that did not add up, with discrepancies of $260m and $311m.","quote":"Guardian Australia has found that one of the references to a World Health Organization report has a ChatGPT metadata tag on the URL, indicating that the link was directly sourced from the chatbot.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"reached","text":"The errors reached the published feasibility study used by the WA government and the state opposition, and were reported in the media.","quote":"Deloitte is already under pressure after it was revealed in the media this month that the same report contained hallucinated AI references, leading the state opposition to label it “AI slop”.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"caught","text":"Guardian Australia found the ChatGPT metadata tag on a WHO reference URL; the hallucinated references were revealed in the media this month.","quote":"Guardian Australia has found that one of the references to a World Health Organization report has a ChatGPT metadata tag on the URL, indicating that the link was directly sourced from the chatbot.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"done","text":"The WA government wrote to Deloitte to expedite cost recovery, and Deloitte will review and re-issue the report with errors corrected.","quote":"A spokesperson for the WA government told Guardian Australia that the Department of Energy and Economic Diversification had written to Deloitte to expedite the cost recovery process for the report.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"}],"model":"deepseek-chat","prompt_version":"aggregate-2026-09-27.1","extracted_at":"2026-10-28","source_urls":["https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/oct/26/deloitte-report-wa-university-mergers-260m-discrepancy-ai"]}}