The Fair Work Commission has expressed its frustration at the growing misuse of generative AI by applicants to run cases.
In a full bench decision in Sydney on Friday, Deputy Presidents Tony Slevin and Alexandra Grayson, and Commissioner Adam Walkaden, lamented the way applicants were using AI to prepare applications, communications, submissions and witness statements without revision.
“There is a problem with parties taking this approach, generative AI is merely a tool. It is not capable of making the type of decisions required to effectively conduct litigation. Human judgment is called for,” they said.
Their comments were prompted by a matter involving an Uber driver who had been deactivated from his employer’s digital labour platform in September last year after four incidents of misconduct.
In February the Commission had found he was not unfairly deactivated, and in May, he had been refused permission to appeal.
The driver was now applying to correct, vary or revoke the appeal decision, and requesting that the full bench recuse itself.
The bench said AI had “generated pages and pages of emails and other documents that served only to obscure his claims”.
“(The applicant) expected leniency from the Commission as he was unrepresented. In the ordinary course the Commission will accommodate unrepresented litigants. In (this) case the Commission has made accommodation by sifting through his voluminous material to identify his complaints and address them,” it said.
“The Commission has commented on the pitfalls of the use of AI in a number of recent decisions, including where case references have been made up, filed material has been lengthy and repetitive, and the party has relied on guidance that was wrong or on material that they did not understand.
“The unconstrained use of AI by parties causes delay, wastes resources and does not assist the Commission to get to the heart of matters and effectively perform its role in the manner intended by the legislation.”
The bench said that within hours of the decision to refuse his appeal, the applicant began emailing AI-drafted complaints to the Commission which were “by and large, incoherent”.
It said they contained directions that were “largely unintelligible” and grounds in support that were “equally incoherent”.
“Parties should not correspond with the Commission in this manner,” it warned.
The bench refused the recusal request and dismissed the application to correct, vary or revoke the appeal decision.
Read the decision here.
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