Solly Malatsi, South Africa's Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, stated on the evening of the 26th local time that following an internal investigation, multiple fictitious references were found in the bibliography of the publicly consulted version of the 'Draft National Artificial Intelligence Policy,' leading to its formal withdrawal. The draft was approved by the Cabinet on March 25 and published in the government gazette for public comment on April 10, with a deadline of June 10. Previous local media reports suggested that several academic papers and journals cited in the draft were suspected (yí sì, 'suspected to be') AI-generated content.
