Report supporting Australia’s teen social media ban appears to contain AI hallucinations, Senate hears
A report used to support Australia's teenage social media ban appears to include citations to academic articles that do not exist, according to a Guardian analysis aired in Senate hearings. The report's authors acknowledge using ChatGPT in editing but deny the citation errors stem from AI hallucinations.
Why this matters: Australia's social media ban for under-16s is already law. The age assurance technology meant to enforce it was evaluated in a report that may cite sources that were never real. That is a serious problem. Policy that restricts what millions of young people can do online should rest on solid evidence, not fabricated footnotes. If AI was used to help write a $3.48 million government-funded trial report, the public deserves a straight answer about what it actually wrote and what the authors actually verified.
Who should care: General readers · AI governance · Policy
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