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Two Home Affairs officials suspended after AI 'hallucinations' found

citizen.co.za

21–30 of 45 posts

Re: Two Home Affairs officials suspended after AI 'hallucinations' found

#21

If this happened in the US or Europe it would be an interesting story. In South Africa, this is just par for the course and the quality of the work may not have been any better had it been written by the current people staffing home affairs.

Add the insult that these two officials have no doubt been suspended on full pay and benefits while the year-long investigation takes place at great expense to the tax payer. After which they are moved to a different government department as “punishment”.

Re: Two Home Affairs officials suspended after AI 'hallucinations' found

#23
This is the tip of the iceberg. For example, the South African government included AI hallucinations in drafting its own AI policy: https://mybroadband.co.za/news/ai/644001-south-african-exper... . Imagine the AI slop in other documents including those that are classified, financial calculations etc.

Re: Two Home Affairs officials suspended after AI 'hallucinations' found

#24
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you find out about IBM and Fanta!

Yes, I'm aware. But the point is not just that some businesses survived being Nazi-friendly - Hugo Boss is another example. The point is it's more unusual that a propaganda outlet whose entire purpose was to promote an evil regime survives that regime.

It would seem like a news paper being pro-regime is more of a survival strategy than anything else. Plenty of papers survived the Nazi era and exist today. Nothing unique to be seen in it here.

Re: Two Home Affairs officials suspended after AI 'hallucinations' found

#27
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you find out about IBM and Fanta!

Yes, I'm aware. But the point is not just that some businesses survived being Nazi-friendly - Hugo Boss is another example. The point is it's more unusual that a propaganda outlet whose entire purpose was to promote an evil regime survives that regime.

[deleted]

Re: Two Home Affairs officials suspended after AI 'hallucinations' found

#28

If this happened in the US or Europe it would be an interesting story. In South Africa, this is just par for the course and the quality of the work may not have been any better had it been written by the current people staffing home affairs.

Currently it's happening in reverse in Denmark. People submit complaints to the municipalities about various things and increasingly those complaints are written with the help of AI (~20%). These cases take up a ton of time, because they are so difficult to process, referencing rules and regulations that doesn't exist, mixed in with some that do. These AI written complaints are typically way more complex, and 10 times the pages of a human written one.

Re: Two Home Affairs officials suspended after AI 'hallucinations' found

#30
As a South African, it is well known here (well, amongst the educated) that the vast majority of management level and up government positions are awarded based on who you know rather than what you know.

These people who don't actually do their job properly very rarely get dismissed, at worst, and only after a public debacle, they tend to be shuffled off to some other position in a different department that they're equally unqualified for.

This just one of the many, many, many, symptoms of this general problem.

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