Feed: Slashdot
Feed Link: https://slashdot.org/
---

Title: Newfoundland's 10-Year Education Report Calling For Ethical AI Use
Contains Over 15 Fake Sources

Link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/09/12/2392...

Newfoundland and Labrador's 10-year Education Accord report (PDF) intended to
guide school reform has been found to contain at least 15 fabricated
citations, including references to non-existent films and journals. Academics
suggest the fake sources may have been generated by AI. "There are sources in
this report that I cannot find in the MUN Library, in the other libraries I
subscribe to, in Google searches. Whether that's AI, I don't know, but
fabricating sources is a telltale sign of artificial intelligence," said
Aaron Tucker, an assistant professor at Memorial whose current research
focuses on the history of AI in Canada. "The fabrication of sources at least
begs the question: did this come from generative AI?" CBC News reports: In
one case, the report references a 2008 movie from the National Film Board
called Schoolyard Games. The film doesn't exist, according to a spokesperson
for the board. But the exact citation used in the report can be found in a
University of Victoria style guide -- a document that clearly lists fake
references designed as templates for researchers writing a bibliography.
"Many citations in this guide are fictitious," reads the first page of the
document. "Errors happen. Made-up citations are a totally different thing
where you essentially demolish the trustworthiness of the material," said
Josh Lepawsky, the former president of the Memorial University Faculty
Association who resigned from the report's advisory board last January,
citing a "deeply flawed process" leading to "top-down" recommendations. The
418-page Education Accord NL report took 18 months to complete and was
unveiled Aug. 28 by its co-chairs Anne Burke and Karen Goodnough, both
professors at Memorial's Faculty of Education. The pair released the report
alongside Education Minister Bernard Davis. "We are investigating and
checking references, so I cannot respond to this at the moment," wrote
Goodnough in an email declining an interview Thursday. In a statement, the
Department of Education and Early Childhood Development said it was aware of
a "small number of potential errors in citations" in the report. "We
understand that these issues are being addressed, and that the online report
will be updated in the coming days to rectify any errors."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

---
VRSS v2.1.180528