A Polish contractor bidding for a road maintenance project in the southeastern Małopolska region has had its abnormally low bid excluded by the country’s National Appeals Chamber because its explanation for the rock-bottom price had been partly generated by AI, which cited nonexistent tax documents.
Competitors had detected the AI “hallucinations” in the bid and appealed, Warsaw Business Journal reports.
The Chamber confirmed that contractor Exdrog’s 280-page clarification contained AI-generated falsehoods and ruled that the company failed to verify it, thus misleading the contracting authority.
The Chamber ruled it to be an oversight rather than deliberate fraud, but still disqualified Exdrog’s bid.
Industry experts told the business journal that the matter raised concerns over the use of AI in public procurement.
Jan Styliński, representing the Polish Construction Employers’ Association, said there was an urgent need for legal frameworks regulating AI-generated materials in tenders. The frameworks were needed to define authorship, verification duties and acceptable use, he said.
And speaking for the National Chamber of Road Construction, Barbara Dzieciuchowicz warned that using AI without validation could heighten risk and raise costs instead of saving time. She said bidders should disclose whether and how AI was used in their documentation.
Krystian Barczyk, Exdrog’s president, denied knowingly using AI and said Exdrog would consider an appeal after receiving the official ruling.
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