Newfoundland and Labrador’s new premier is pledging strict standards for artificial intelligence use in public service, after a second report commissioned by his predecessors was found to contain fake citations. The Canadian arm of consulting firm Deloitte is standing by its final recommendations but acknowledged there were errors in a 523-page report on health-care worker staffing submitted to Newfoundland and Labrador’s provincial government in May. “AI was not used to write the report; it was selectively used to support a small number of research citations,” a spokesperson for Deloitte said in a statement. “We are revising the report to make a small number of citation corrections, which do not impact the report findings.” The false citations were first unearthed by The Independent, an online news publication covering Newfoundland and Labrador. The publication reported three examples of citations of journal papers that do not exist. “When you hire professional organizations to prepare reports then you don’t expect to get this type of thing happening in those reports,” Premier Tony Wakeham told reporters on Tuesday. The Premier’s Office said Wednesday that it would seek to create guidelines on the use of artificial intelligence tools in public service. “Our government recognizes both the potential benefits and the real risks associated with its use. As we move forward, we will ensure that any application of AI within government is subject to strict review, human verification, and transparent quality controls,” it wrote in an email. While Deloitte Canada said its corrections won’t impact the findings of its report, the head of the Registered Nurses Union in Newfoundland and Labrador said in a statement that the provincial government’s continued use of Deloitte consultants “raises significant concern.” “We need to be certain that the information used to guide decisions about our health-care workforce is accurate, complete, and assessed by qualified people,” Yvette Coffey wrote in a statement. Coffey noted the nearly $1.6 million spent on the report could have supported 14 full-time nursing positions for a year. “It is reasonable to expect careful stewardship of public dollars and responsible use of new technology,” she wrote. “Right now, what we are seeing does not meet that standard.” The Health Human Resources Plan, written by Deloitte, aimed to guide the next 10 years of hiring decisions in Newfoundland and Labrador’s health-care system. One of the fake citations was for a journal article that purported to examine the costs and benefits of recruiting health-care workers inside the province instead of recruiting from overseas. The cited source, “The cost-effectiveness of local recruitment and retention strategies for health workers in Canada,” was never published. It’s the second time that a major government report in Newfoundland and Labrador was found to include false citations. In September, Radio-Canada reported the Education Accord NL’s final report contained at least 15 citations for non-existent sources. One of the medium-term recommendations of the Health Human Resources Plan was to further investigate the potential use of artificial intelligence tools in the health-care system. Deloitte wrote that generative artificial intelligence tools have “the potential to revolutionize health care by enabling faster and more accurate diagnoses, more personalized treatment plans, and improved patient outcomes.” It specifically recommended that Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services investigate the use of a “digital human teammate,” or an AI-agent that could interact with hospital patients.
