Canada: “Newfoundland’s 10-year Education Action Plan Cites Sources That Don’t Exist”

From the CBC:

A major report on modernizing the education system in Newfoundland and Labrador is peppered with fake sources some educators say were likely fabricated by generative artificial intelligence (AI).

Released last month, the Education Accord NL final report, a 10-year roadmap for improving the province’s public schools and post-secondary institutions, includes at least 15 citations for non-existent journal articles and documents.

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.

“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.

“Many citations in this guide are fictitious,” reads the first page of the document.

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UPDATE: Coverage From Ars Technica: “Education Report Calling For Ethical AI Use Contains Over 15 Fake Sources”

The presence of potentially AI-generated fake citations becomes especially awkward given that one of the report’s 110 recommendations specifically states the provincial government should “provide learners and educators with essential AI knowledge, including ethics, data privacy, and responsible technology use.”

Sarah Martin, a Memorial political science professor who spent days reviewing the document, discovered multiple fabricated citations. “Around the references I cannot find, I can’t imagine another explanation,” she told CBC. “You’re like, ‘This has to be right, this can’t not be.’ This is a citation in a very important document for educational policy.”

When contacted by CBC, co-chair Karen Goodnough declined an interview request, writing in an email: “We are investigating and checking references, so I cannot respond to this at the moment.”

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