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Deloitte to refund the Australian government after using AI in $440k report

theguardian.com

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Re: Deloitte to refund the Australian government after using AI in $440k report

#231

Post by port11 »

DrScientist wrote: post #59

While we are on the topic of listing problems with consultants/outsourcing - another potential problem is the A team/ B team switch. During initial engagement you are often talking to somebody who appears to actually know their stuff - you hire them and find that this knowledgable person has moved on to the next big sales, and you've got the B or C team.

I've worked for a Big 3 and can't say this happens that much.

What does happen is that you were pitched/sold by a perfect PowerPoint presented by a senior partner/manager, but all the work afterwards is done by the 26-year old fresh-out-of-MBA consultants. The partner is still responsible for the project, but mostly on a “I'll review your work later from an expensive restaurant I'll bill the client for”.

They'll also invent the wildest things when it comes to tech work. I was working as an expert on software development and integrations, and often had to tell clients that what the consultants promised is simply not possible.

Re: Deloitte to refund the Australian government after using AI in $440k report

#232

Post by sauercrowd »

naijaboiler wrote: post #157
sauercrowd wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one part that gets easily overlooked is that they not in-house, and that's a feature. That means even when an in-house team has the same expertise, they have to adhere by in-house processes and hierarchy. If a CEO signs off a consultant contract, they dont play in the same arena, and can often side-step the hurdles an internal team would face, without anyone internally getting too upset (compared to an intern…

Except the internal team that can do the same thing better and cheaper

The problem is they often can't, even if they have the skills to. Big companies are full of politics

Re: Deloitte to refund the Australian government after using AI in $440k report

#233

Post by citizenpaul »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #218
citizenpaul wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of "consultants" at all. In my experinance all they ever do is either muck things up by black boxing the thing they were paid to do. Or more often simply leave a huge list of "you should do this" that will be $500k, and then leave. What I've heard as a counter to their uselessness is that they function as a sort of legal corporate espionage. You should do this because my other customer that I cant name…

You missed their primary purpose: To provide cover for whatever half-assed idea an exec came up with. If the CEO of my automobile company wakes up one morning with the zany idea to cut costs by only including 3 wheels with the purchase of a car, if he just goes ahead and does it, the investors will call for his head when customers stop buying our cars and instead purchase our four-wheeled compeitors. But if our CEO h…

Ah yes the un-accountability machine at work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unaccountability_Machine

I do like this take. I'm a cynic at the core but I've been trying to see the slightly less cynical side of things lately.

> they'll make a bunch of reports and excel sheets

Reminds me of a dilbert comic where he says the excel sheet is full of errors and incorrect data but it doesn't matter because no one will look at it again unless it reinforces a decision mgmt has already made.

Re: Deloitte to refund the Australian government after using AI in $440k report

#234

Post by lostlogin »

lazyeye wrote: post #230
lostlogin wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When humans want a scapegoat, the target is often chosen based on race. What will AI pick on?

I think its based on immigration status which is different from race.

There are cases of those legally in the US being kidnapped. ICE aren’t hitting all races equally.

Re: Deloitte to refund the Australian government after using AI in $440k report

#235

Post by ksajh »

sidcool wrote: post #159

I have worked in Consultancies for a long time. And many people here don't know what they do. Of course, there are bad apples that cheat. But a lot of good value in consultancies too! One evidence is that they are still around and earn billions.

Being around and earning billions does not mean they're producing appropriate value

Re: Deloitte to refund the Australian government after using AI in $440k report

#236

Post by lazyeye »

lostlogin wrote: post #234
lazyeye wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its based on immigration status which is different from race.

There are cases of those legally in the US being kidnapped. ICE aren’t hitting all races equally.

What cases? Immigration status is not weighted evenly across all races.

Re: Deloitte to refund the Australian government after using AI in $440k report

#237

Post by orthecreedence »

lazyeye wrote: post #236
lostlogin wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are cases of those legally in the US being kidnapped. ICE aren’t hitting all races equally.

What cases? Immigration status is not weighted evenly across all races.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.98...

Injured, kidnapped, prohibited from contacting counsel or family, and forced to stay in hospital under watch without cause.

Re: Deloitte to refund the Australian government after using AI in $440k report

#238

Post by Gigachad »

collingreen wrote: post #161
atmosx wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the government level, it’s mostly driven by ideology. I never came across a situation where a service improved after being "liberalized". Never. Not once. It is always end up in a combo of: poorer quality and (much) higher cost. I’ve seen too many cases where people suffer the consequences of their own ideas being implemented (large or lower scale), convinced that if we just turn this knob a little more, it’ll fin…

What does liberalized mean here? Also if you have time which ideology was holding the government/deloitte back here? I'm not sure what the message is here but I'm willing to with some more concrete.

The Liberals are a party in Australia famous for selling off everything the government has and replacing everyone with contractors only for it all to eventually be bought back and people rehired later.

Re: Deloitte to refund the Australian government after using AI in $440k report

#239

Post by caminante »

roncesvalles wrote: post #220
citizenpaul wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really do think that this type of AI use is going to become a true life/death epidemic. The people at Deloitte are not generally dumb unmotivated people. They are ruthless $$ chasers and if AI is allowed they will use it to check the boxes and move onto the next paycheck. Many of these people will effectively have their life ruined. Many will likely take their own life. Its not just harmless paperwork fudging when…

>The people at Deloitte are not generally dumb unmotivated people. You end up consulting at Deloitte when you can't get into MBB, any of the smaller boutique firms, strategy at big corporations etc. Accountants are an exception but they're only there to pad their resume before exiting to corporate in-house finance roles that lead to CFO positions. Deloitte is to outsourced business consulting what Infosys is to outso…

I've found that the MBB > Big4 trope has largely disappeared (Look at comp at Partner and N-2 levels.)

MBB still has an edge for general management consulting, but I see demand dwindling, despite the annual occurrence of a middle eastern sovereign wealth fund paying $100M for a study to build a wind powered ice skating rink on top of a helicopter pad.

Re: Deloitte to refund the Australian government after using AI in $440k report

#240

Post by latchkey »

pram wrote: post #199
decimalenough wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience with using a $WITCH for a large support engagement, the A team woos you, the B team is what you get initially, and as soon as they think you've got your eye off the ball, they swap in the Z team. This was for a contract where we made it very clear that quality/skill was paramount and we would happily pay above market rates forever if they could maintain it. Of course they got greedy and lost the de…

No joke: I worked at an MSP and we onboarded a huge client, we were supposed to handle their network provisioning/problems through a dedicated service desk ticketing system. After the B team set everything up, they didn't even get the Z team. A few months in, it turned out NO ONE was logging into their ticketing system at all, so there were hundreds of tickets their engineers had created with no acknowledgement. Just…

Not a single engineer spoke up to say something?
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