South Africa’s AI Policy Problem and the Risk for the Global South

South Africa withdrew its AI policy after several academic citations were found to be fake.The irony was obvious: an AI policy appeared to have been undermined by AI-generated hallucinations.But in this episode of Rethinking Tech, Aparna and Harinda argue that this is about much more than one embarrassing policy mistake. It is about what happens when governments urgently need AI governance, but do not have the resources, institutions, or capacity to build and verify those frameworks properly.At the center of this conversation is a bigger question: if countries in the Global South cannot develop AI rules that reflect their own economies, cultures, languages, and development needs, will they be forced to adopt rules written by the EU, the US, or China?What this episode exploresWhy South Africa withdrew its AI policyHow fake AI-generated citations exposed a deeper governance challengeWhy under-resourced governments may be especially vulnerable to AI shortcutsWhat this means for AI regulation across Africa and the Global SouthHow countries can become dependent on foreign AI platforms, hyperscalers, and regulatory modelsWhy AI governance is not just about innovation, but sovereigntyWhy this mattersThe countries writing AI governance frameworks today may shape how AI is deployed for decades.But if governments lack the resources to create and implement their own rules, they may end up playing by someone else’s.That means AI governance could become another form of dependency — not through military power or trade agreements, but through infrastructure, standards, platforms, data rules, and regulation.South Africa’s policy failure may look like a citation scandal.But the deeper issue is who gets to write the rules of AI for the next generation.About Rethinking TechRethinking Tech explores the intersection of technology, geopolitics, business, and ethics — focusing on how systems actually work, not just how they’re talked about.