{"id":35435,"date":"2026-05-26T12:46:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=35435"},"modified":"2026-05-26T12:46:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:46:06","slug":"sa-targets-january-2027-for-revised-ai-policy-after-earlier-withdrawal","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-targets-january-2027-for-revised-ai-policy-after-earlier-withdrawal\/","title":{"rendered":"SA targets January 2027 for revised AI policy after earlier withdrawal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>South Africa&#8217;s (SA) Communications Minister established an independent panel of experts to review a draft national policy on Artificial Intelligent (AI), after an earlier version was withdrawn when it was \u200bfound to contain fictitious and potentially AI generated references.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Solly Malatsi \u2060briefed a parliamentary committee on Tuesday after pulling the earlier \u200bdraft.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The target publication date for public comment is January 2027, \u200baccording to Jeanette Morwane, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies acting Deputy Director-General.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The policy, released in April for public comment, sought to position SA as a continental leader in AI innovation while addressing ethical \u200band economic concerns.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Malatsi said internal checks had not flagged the issues before they \u200cwere \u2060exposed by online news publication\u00a0<i>News24.<\/i><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He added that the draft was meant to be a starting point to invite public input and much of the policy&#8217;s content had not faced significant \u200bchallenge.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But he \u200backnowledged a &#8220;massive oversight&#8221; \u2060and a lack of disclosure around AI use in compiling the references.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Among other things, the new \u200bseven-member panel will review the document, recommend revisions \u200bor \u2060removals and replace flawed citations, with a revised policy expected to go to the Cabinet by November 2026 for approval, Morwane said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":31561,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-35435","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Focus on Artificial Intelligent","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35436,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35435\/revisions\/35436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=35435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}