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South Africa’s parliament is looking to move away from static legislative cycles to agile, sector-specific oversight for AI that prevents delaying tech adoption and avoids another “set-top box saga”.This is according to parliamentary portfolio committee on communications & digital technologies chair Khusela Sangoni-Diko, who addressed public and private sector leaders at Naspers’ AI governance and policy symposium in Johannesburg on Wednesday.While businesses in South Africa figure out how to make the most of AI, the government is under pressure to create rules that protect rights such as privacy while also encouraging innovation and investment.“Regulation of frontier tech naturally poses unique challenges and I think we can be quite honest here and admit that in the past the pace of innovation has outstripped the pace of policymaking. There are some examples we know in this regard, like the famous set-top box saga. It was a saga,” said Sangoni-Diko. She was referring to the state’s drawn-out move from analogue to digital television broadcast. The government has yet to reach its target of installing about 1.8-million set-top boxes in households that need new devices to receive the updated digital broadcast signals. Since inception, just more than 1.3-million installations have been done, with hundreds of thousands still outstanding.This means communications minister Solly Malatsi, the ninth minister to take on the digital migration project, and his department are funding the analogue system operating alongside the digital one.“The common thread was that regulatory uncertainty delayed technological adoption, and not without cost. By the time policymakers had understood and developed regulations for one technological breakthrough, another had already emerged to take its place,” Sangoni-Diko said. Sangoni-Diko, who has been at odds with Malatsi on a number of issues, is likely wary of repeating the embarrassing oversight that saw the minister withdrawing the country’s draft national AI policy after it was found that AI had, ironically, inserted fake references into the document. At the same, parliament understands that it needs to fill the policy vacuum quickly. “Herein lies the lessons for both the policymakers about agility and about the evolving speed of innovation. Waiting for the perfect regulatory framework is a luxury we do not have as a country,” Sangoni-Diko said. “If we are to embrace AI’s potential for productivity, investment, competitiveness and job creation, the reality is that by the time a comprehensive framework is enacted, all the i’s dotted and all the t’s crossed, the tech it seeks to govern may have already changed.”The proposed solution is to develop a legislative framework that can quickly be updated as technology advancements happen. “So with this landscape changing so rapidly, it’s clear we are not dealing with a scenario where rules are written once and then left unchanged,” she said. “Furthermore, it is not enough to develop and enact a regulatory regime for technologies that already exist. We must encompass those that are still coming. And, unfortunately, none of us have a crystal ball.”Adding to the complexity, Sangoni-Diko acknowledged that while guardrails have to be put in place to regulate AI use, putting in such measures should not be done at the expense of innovation. “Certainly not regulating innovation out of existence by stifling the very ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit that frontier technologies depend on. So, the challenge before us is to develop regulations and exercise oversight in a manner that is adaptive, responsive, and protects the public interest,” she said. Business Day
