AI isn't the risk in this election – impatience is

OPINION - AI is already here. Not just in business, but in South Africa's political and electoral landscape too.

And right now, the referee doesn't fully understand the rules of its own game.

Days before telling political parties that they must label AI-generated content, South Africa's Electoral Commission (IEC) posted an AI-altered image to promote voter registration. Nobody flagged it internally. Nobody labelled it.

If the body writing the rulebook cannot follow its own draft rules, what hope is there that everyone else will?

I made a similar point on national television earlier this year. Mandatory labelling of AI-generated campaign content was not optional, I argued; it was where electoral regulation needed to go.

I wasn't guessing. I've watched the same pattern play out in industries with far less at stake than an election.

So when the IEC's draft regulations surfaced, requiring political parties to label AI-generated material and take responsibility for misinformation on their own platforms, I wasn't surprised. I was relieved.

Not because I had called it. Being right isn't the point.

The point is that the gap between what should happen and what actually happens in AI governance is usually measured in years. Here, it is being measured in weeks.

That's a good sign for South Africa, even if the Commission's own conduct suggests the habit has not yet caught up with the policy.

AI mistakes can have political consequences

There is a reason this matters more than it might initially appear.

This year, South African government ministers were caught relying on AI-generated content that turned out to be hallucinated – plausible-sounding, confidently stated and entirely false.

My first reaction was amusement. It isn't the first time I've heard this story.

A man once tried to build his own AI lawyer and appeared before a judge citing legal precedents that simply did not exist.

Funny, until you consider what those mistakes can actually cost.

Voter trust is harder to rebuild

Here is the political version of that same mistake.

Political parties reaching voters through AI, often for the first time, aren't simply risking an embarrassing headline. They are risking something far more valuable: trust.

A message that was previously credible and worth hearing can be undermined the moment it is built on something false.

And trust does not rebuild at the same speed that it breaks.

It is the electoral equivalent of walking out of a job interview and only afterwards thinking of the answer you should have given.

Except in an election, there is no walking back in.

AI can strengthen political communication

AI can genuinely help political parties reach people faster, understand what matters to voters and communicate with a precision that simply wasn't possible five years ago.

That is real. And it is valuable.

But hand AI the microphone without checking what it says first, and it won't just cost you one bad answer.

It could cost you the room.