Home Affairs has suspended two senior officials with immediate effect after artificial intelligence (AI) hallucinations were found in a recently revised White Paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Revised White Paper on Citizenship, Immigration, and Refugees<\/em> included sources that were later found to be fabricated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The precautionary suspension of a Chief Director in the relevant unit was carried out this afternoon, while the suspension of a Director involved in the drafting process will be effected on Monday,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “In addition to implementing precautionary suspensions, the Department has appointed two independent law firms to respectively manage the disciplinary process and review policy documents.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The department said the firm would review all policy documents produced by the Department of Home Affairs dating back to 30 November 2022, when ChatGPT was released to the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Moving forward, the Department will also design and implement AI checks and declarations as part of its internal approval processes,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The department explained that its initial internal review revealed that the references were generated and attached to the document after the fact. They were not cited in the body of the text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Consequently, the Department has withdrawn the reference list, pending the finalisation of the independent probe to determine how the hallucinations came to be added to the list,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “However, the body of the Revised White Paper continues to accurately reflect the government’s position on the policy reforms required in these domains.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n It added that the body of the White Paper was written through an extensive process of cross-departmental collaboration and public consultation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “These measures are not materially affected by the apparent AI hallucinations contained in the standalone reference list,” the department said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Department nonetheless sincerely apologises for this unacceptable oversight.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n It added that the immediate implementation of precautionary suspensions and independent review processes reflected its commitment to rectifying the situation and avoiding any repeat incidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “At the same time, the Department recognises the benefits of AI and that it is being widely adopted across society,” Home Affairs said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It is a transformative but disruptive technology that is changing how organisations operate across the private and public sectors. We must now adapt to keep up.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Home Affairs said this “painful and embarrassing” experience provided an opportunity to modernise the department’s internal processes further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Home Affairs minister Leon Schreiber also addressed the matter in a separate statement in his capacity as the Democratic Alliance (DA) coordinator in the National Executive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Schreiber said DA ministers would require all their departments to urgently implement AI verification as part of policy approval processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “In addition, I will raise at the next meeting of the Cabinet the urgent need for this approach to be implemented across government,” the minister said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The development of AI presents extraordinary opportunities, but it must also be used responsibly and with integrity. We will ensure that is the approach into the future.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Revised White Paper on Citizenship, Immigration, and Refugees included sources that were later found to be fabricated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":644708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18668],"tags":[88872,104947,35793,11353,83065,6535,60433,78048,98770],"class_list":["post-644698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-ai-chatbots","tag-ai-citations","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-cabinet","tag-chatgpt","tag-department-of-home-affairs","tag-immigration","tag-leon-schreiber","tag-minister-of-home-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644698"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644698"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":644711,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644698\/revisions\/644711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}