File-naming blunders doomed MAPS protest, not ambiguities
Gettyimages.com/ gorodenkoff
By
Nick Wakeman
JAAW Group’s protest also was dinged because it cited a non-existent case, which the Government Accountability Office cited as evidence of careless use of artificial intelligence.
User error has apparently sunk the JAAW Group’s pursuit of a place on the Army’s MAPS professional services contract vehicle.
But its protest also ran into trouble after the Government Accountability Office claimed there was evidence of artificial intelligence being used to craft the protest.
JAAW Group was the managing member of joint venture Paralaxx LLC, which pursued the Army’s $50 billion Marketplace for the Acquisition of Professional Services contract.
The JV’s proposal was rejected because it did not follow the naming conventions for its proposal. JAAW argued that the solicitation was not clear and that the MAPS portal rejected the proposal.
In its July 31 ruling, GAO found the instructions were clear and that the JV consistently did not follow the instructions for how to name their files.
The solicitation required a certain format: Company name, Cover and then the date. The portal would automatically add the PDF extension.
JAAW made four different attempts and none followed the naming convention. JAWW made similar mistakes when submitting some of the other volumes, and even misspelled its own name in one.
While JAAW argued there were inconsistencies in the instructions, GAO did not find anything that was ambiguous.
GAO reviewed screenshots of the company’s rejected submissions. The error messages the company received told it to use the naming format from the solicitation.
GAO dismissed the protest because the company did not provide any factual grounds for the protest.
To make matters worse, JAAW made inaccurate legal citations in its protest that GAO said were consistent with the use of artificial intelligence.
One case the company cited could not be found. A second case was real, but was found to be irrelevant because it focused on different issues.
JAAW admitted its mistake and withdrew that citation. The company also committed to “independent verification of all legal authorities in future filings,” it told GAO.
“There is nothing inherently wrong with the proper and competent use of AI tools in the legal arena, this evolving technology has many glitches--including hallucinations--and must only be used with close, careful supervision, factchecking, and citation-checking,” GAO wrote.
GAO declined to impose sanctions over the AI-related citation errors since it was dismissing the protest anyway on the merits. But the agency warned JAAW that future filings with similarly unreliable citations could draw sanctions.
GAO has separately dismissed a protest by Alpha Omega Integration. Eight other protests are still active with decision dates later in August and into September.