South Africa used AI to write its AI policy. The citations were fake.

South Africa’s Communications Minister Solly Malatsi withdrew the country’s draft national AI policy after News24 discovered that at least 6 of its 67 academic citations were AI-generated hallucinations, citing fake articles in real journals. The policy had been approved by Cabinet in March and published for public comment. Malatsi called it an “unacceptable lapse” and promised consequence management. The scandal leaves South Africa without an AI governance framework and raises questions about institutional capacity to regulate the technology.

South Africa’s Department of Communications and Digital Technologies spent months drafting a national artificial intelligence policy. It proposed a National AI Commission, an AI Ethics Board, an AI Regulatory Authority, an AI Ombudsperson, a National AI Safety Institute, and an AI Insurance Superfund. It outlined five pillars of AI governance: skills capacity, responsible governance, ethical and inclusive AI, cultural preservation, and human-centred deployment. It adopted a risk-based approach modelled ...