The cases / Government / education
Alaska's education commissioner cited studies that don't exist in a cellphone resolution
What the AI said
Four of six citations, e.g. 'Banning mobile phones improves student performance: Evidence from a quasi-experiment' in Computers in Human Behavior.
What was actually true
The journals exist, but the titles aren't in the issues listed. One URL led to an unrelated article, 'Sexualized Behaviors on Facebook'. A fictitious 2019 APA study stayed in the corrected version.
Cost or impact
The state board adopted the resolution. The department first called the citations 'placeholders', then updated the document after press questions.
Who caught it
Alaska Beacon (Claire Stremple).
Check that would have caught it Our analysis
source citation. Open each cited URL and confirm the title matches.
This is our judgment, not something the sources say. How we assign it.
Sources
- alaskabeacon.comhttps://alaskabeacon.com/2024/10/28/alaska-education-department-published-false-ai-generated-academic-citations-in-cell-policy-document/
- alaskapublic.orghttps://alaskapublic.org/news/2024-10-28/false-citations-show-alaska-education-official-relied-on-generative-ai-raising-broader-questions
Links last checked Oct 24, 2026. If something here is wrong, send a correction.