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Minister Solly Malatsi seen in his office.
Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi has apologised to the nation following the withdrawal of the Draft National Artificial Intelligence Policy, which contained fictitious academic references.
Malatsi says the withdrawal was necessary after internal investigations confirmed that the draft policy contained AI-generated citations.
The draft policy was gazetted earlier this month for public comment, but faced questions about its credibility.
The policy was intended to provide a regulatory framework to ensure safeguards around the use of AI.
Malatsi has described this as a massive embarrassment for the department and government.
“It just exposes the irony that in as much as we were in the process of developing a policy that will also have a package of guidelines around the responsible use of AI, we fell short of that. And as government, and particularly as the executive authority, we have to take responsibility for the lack of robust oversight in ensuring that such a moment, which was supposed to be a breakthrough moment for South Africa in terms of policymaking, is now stained by this massive failure to verify the credibility of some of the sources.”
VIDEO | AI Draft Policy withdrawn:
