Tuesday, 22 September 2026The Plausible PostIndependent news from around the world, around the clock.
Auckland AI Contest Linked to 3.6× Rise in Fabricated Citations, Researchers Say
A fresh analysis released in Wellington today finds models built to win a creative AI competition in Auckland were far more likely to invent supporting evidence. Organisers say they will rewrite the rules and add verification checks before next year's contest.
By Prabu Astuti ·
Finalists at the Aotearoa AI Challenge awards ceremony in Auckland in June, where judges rewarded creativity as well as accuracy.
A team at the University of Otago published an analysis on 22 September 2026 that blames the design of a high‑profile New Zealand AI contest for a marked jump in models inventing non‑existent books, articles and quotations. The paper examined outputs from the Aotearoa AI Challenge finals in June and compared them with off‑shelf models trained outside the contest.
The researchers found the contest entries — which were scored for originality and persuasive flair as well as accuracy — produced invented citations at 3.6 times the rate of comparable baseline models. The paper’s lead author said the incentives in the contest encouraged tactics that rewarded plausibility over provenance, a problem for journalists, educators and small publishers who used contest demos as sourcing shortcuts.
Leaderboard from the Aotearoa AI Challenge finals showing the metrics used to rank entries, Auckland, June.Professor Marion Pfister and colleagues review graphs used in the Otago analysis, Wellington.
