JOHANNESBURG - "It’s quite embarrassing," said Solly Malatsi.
This comes after it was discovered that the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies’ draft Artificial Intelligence (AI) policy contained unverified, hallucinated references.
The policy had been gazetted and opened for public comment until June.
Malatsi has since withdrawn the draft policy and says action will be taken against those responsible.
He says the incident is embarrassing because the policy was intended to provide clear guidelines for the ethical use and adoption of AI in professional spaces.
The irony, he notes, is that the department fell victim to the very tools it was trying to regulate, without proper oversight.
"My signature is on the document as the executive authority," he said.
He adds that although the policy went through various stages of authentication and authorisation, it still fell short.
"There is a trust we bestow on our teams and officials who work on this," said Malatsi.
He said that this was not the first version of the document, as there had already been engagements with various stakeholders.
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Despite this, Malatsi said he is taking full responsibility.
"This is the time for openness and accountability and this is part of that accountability," he added.
The type of blunder made by the department is likely to become more common as AI adoption increases, according to AI expert Dr Rendani Mbavhi.
"The blunder shows that there's an increase in the adoption of and use of AI, including in policy making," he said.
"The irony is where the human is supposed to be centred towards the policy adoption and drafting it itself," he added.
Mbavhi said the issue can be remedied.
"In the AI era, we are seeing a situation where the technology is far ahead of its regulation," he added.
"It is one of those cases where we'll have to catch up."
All is not lost, according to Mbavhi, who says South Africans still have much to gain from the adoption of AI.
He added that there are lessons in this gaffe that he believes will not be repeated.