There could hardly be a greater irony. This week, South Africa withdrew its AI policy draft because it contained mistakes dreamed up by AI hallucinations. What was supposed to be Africa’s first AI policy became an embarrassment for the continent’s largest economy. But the error behind it was human. When we use powerful new technologies without fully understanding the pitfalls, the fault is not with the machines. We must remember that it took millions of hours of diligent fact-checking by volunteer editors to clean up vast swathes of Wikipedia—a job that’s constantly going on. At the same time, all governments including our own must heed South Africa’s original intent—to set up an AI ethics board and a regulatory authority while promoting the industry.
