What share of Ireland's 2021 metered electricity did data centres account for, per the figure cited in the OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024 chapter (sourced from Ireland's CSO 2023)?
The model correctly identified the source chain, CSO 2023 as cited in the OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024, but substituted 14% for the regulator's 11%. It then extended the response with a forward-projected series (18% in 2022, 21% in 2023) that is not present in the regulator's text, suggesting the model reconstructed a plausible growth trajectory rather than quoting the authoritative figure. The error is not a misidentified source but a numeric value that has drifted at the point of reproduction.
This finding implicates two distinct subsystems. First, the retrieval layer correctly surfaced the source lineage (CSO 2023 via OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024) but the numeric payload at the point of generation drifted — suggesting the training corpus contains multiple paraphrased variants of this figure and the model resolved the conflict toward a higher value present in secondary commentary rather than the verbatim primary text.
Second, the forward-series confabulation (18% in 2022, 21% in 2023) indicates the model's generation logic treats trend continuation as a low-uncertainty extension when an anchor year and growth direction are established in context — a calibration gap that is independent of retrieval quality and would require a post-generation verification step or explicit uncertainty injection to close.
When ESG teams at SaaS firms use AI tools to surface OECD data-centre energy benchmarks, the AI produced the wrong figure for Ireland's 2021 share of metered electricity (14% versus the correct 11% per CSO 2023 as cited in OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024), and fabricated a multi-year trajectory that does not exist in the source document. Any sustainability report section, investor data room brief, or regulatory mapping document that incorporates this figure carries a materially incorrect OECD statistic with correct-looking source attribution, a combination that passes standard QA review undetected.
For SaaS firms benchmarking their digital infrastructure footprint against OECD-cited sector data, or making product sustainability claims that reference national data-centre energy trends, the downstream exposure includes audit findings, investor relations issues, and reputational damage if the discrepancy surfaces through primary source verification by a third party.
Each finding has a stable Citation ID (RLB-F-… for aggregated case-study findings, RLB-H-… for raw per-model hallucinations) — like a DOI, the ID always resolves to the canonical finding even if URLs change.
RegLeg Specialist Panel (2026). "Finding#1, Ireland data-centre electricity share fabrication — Software Saas × Esg Sustainability — International / Multilateral." Citation ID: RLB-F-INT-OECD-OECD-DIGITAL-TECHNOLOGIES-ENVIRONMENT-2025-Q006. RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research, published 2026-06-11. https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j1/int/OECD/OECD-DIGITAL-TECHNOLOGIES-ENVIRONMENT-2025/sectors/software_saas/esg_sustainability/finding/INT-OECD-INT-001-OECD-DIGITAL-TECHNOLOGIES-ENVIRONMENT-2025-v1-006/
RegLeg Specialist Panel. (2026). Finding#1, Ireland data-centre electricity share fabrication [Hallucination finding RLB-F-INT-OECD-OECD-DIGITAL-TECHNOLOGIES-ENVIRONMENT-2025-Q006]. RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research. https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j1/int/OECD/OECD-DIGITAL-TECHNOLOGIES-ENVIRONMENT-2025/sectors/software_saas/esg_sustainability/finding/INT-OECD-INT-001-OECD-DIGITAL-TECHNOLOGIES-ENVIRONMENT-2025-v1-006/
RegLeg Specialist Panel, Finding#1, Ireland data-centre electricity share fabrication [RLB-F-INT-OECD-OECD-DIGITAL-TECHNOLOGIES-ENVIRONMENT-2025-Q006], RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research (June 11, 2026), https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j1/int/OECD/OECD-DIGITAL-TECHNOLOGIES-ENVIRONMENT-2025/sectors/software_saas/esg_sustainability/finding/INT-OECD-INT-001-OECD-DIGITAL-TECHNOLOGIES-ENVIRONMENT-2025-v1-006/.
@misc{reglegbrief_RLB_F_INT_OECD_OECD_DIGITAL_TECHNOLOGIES_ENVIRONMENT_2025_Q006,
author = {RegLeg Specialist Panel},
title = {Finding#1, Ireland data-centre electricity share fabrication},
year = {2026},
publisher = {RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research},
note = {Hallucination finding Citation ID: RLB-F-INT-OECD-OECD-DIGITAL-TECHNOLOGIES-ENVIRONMENT-2025-Q006},
url = {https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j1/int/OECD/OECD-DIGITAL-TECHNOLOGIES-ENVIRONMENT-2025/sectors/software_saas/esg_sustainability/finding/INT-OECD-INT-001-OECD-DIGITAL-TECHNOLOGIES-ENVIRONMENT-2025-v1-006/}
}
Every finding on this page compares an AI subject's account of the rule against the regulator's verbatim text from the regulator's own portal. Both are linked. Each delta, its root causes, and impact analysis are documented and published with immutable Citation IDs.