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Two Home Affairs officials suspended after AI 'hallucinations' found

citizen.co.za

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

#31

Post by jonathanlydall »

wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #3

The entire world sells products to encourage you to do your work with AI assistance. But god forbid that there should be any evidence of that in your .....work. You'll be suspended or fired. Holy god, it looks like someone used AI and were a bit sloppy in their editing!!!! YOU'RE FIRED! Maybe someday when there's been enough such reports people will shrug like they do about security breaches now.

This is just one more facet of the general incompetence of South African government employees, this just hit headlines due to the novelty of it having AI as a component of said incompetence.

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

#32

Post by abyssin »

mrweasel wrote: post #28
lgleason wrote: post #17

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 time…

I'm tempted to say it's fair game, since complexity has often had the advantageous side effect for governing bodies to make legitimate complaints impossible to voice for normal citizens.

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

#33

Post by miningape »

stroebs wrote: post #21
lgleason wrote: post #17

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”.

Nah don't worry, I'm sure Cyril will setup a commission for this

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

#34

Post by testing22321 »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #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 eq…

I worked for a large North American telco.

New Director of core network had an all hands to introduce self and lay out some stuff. During someone’s welcome they said, seriously, in front of ~500 IT/Engineering people “wait, what is IPv6?”

Happens here all the time too.

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

#35

Post by cwnyth »

Terr_ wrote: post #14
cwnyth wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God forbid people actually have to do work and fact-check the hallucination machines!

Yes, but at the same time: "God forbid managers and executives actually permit people enough time to do do work and fact-check the hallucination machines." Especially in contexts where they are also mandating that staff find ways to use the hallucination machines. Much like industrial accidents, some portion of blame has to go to the system , rather than any individual.

That's not relevant to this particular case, but sure, it's hard to disagree with that general statement.

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

#36

Post by forshaper »

testing22321 wrote: post #34
jonathanlydall wrote: post #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 eq…

I worked for a large North American telco. New Director of core network had an all hands to introduce self and lay out some stuff. During someone’s welcome they said, seriously, in front of ~500 IT/Engineering people “wait, what is IPv6?” Happens here all the time too.

Worked at an ISP. An executive had trouble understanding the difference between WiFi and internet.

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

#37

Post by scuff3d »

"Hey use our thing! It's totally going to replace all humans! It's so awesome it can do your job for you!

...

BTW, it hallucinates... Like all the time.. and if you don't fact check our product you're responsible. Not us! We stole all your data to train it, we're making billions and billions of dollars off that theft, but you own all the liability"

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

#38

Post by overfeed »

dee_s101 wrote: post #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.

You should have read the rest of the article - that imcident was mentioned too.

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

#39

Post by mothballed »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #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 eq…

[flagged]

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

#40

Post by Semaphor »

mothballed wrote: post #39
jonathanlydall wrote: post #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 eq…

[flagged]

There are a few non whites in SA, who wouldn't be quite welcome. But I guess that's just *muh racism*
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