How Do You Regulate AI That Moves Faster Than the Law? (Vodacom Tech Talk Podcast)

I joined Koni Mudau on Tech Talk with Vodacom for a full conversation about regulating artificial intelligence in South Africa. I explain why I believe we need a dedicated AI framework — we regulate the things that can cause harm, which is why we have rules about seatbelts and stop streets and none about computer keyboards — and why, in the absence of one, I think many organisations have quietly settled on asking forgiveness rather than permission. We look at what POPIA already requires of companies today, what the EU AI Act gets right with its principle of explainable AI, and whether a South African consumer should be able to phone the bank that declined their loan and ask whether an algorithm made that call and on what data. We talk about bias in credit and in healthcare, about data sovereignty and the African Union's continental work, and about the draft national policy that was published in April and then withdrawn after fabricated citations were found in it. I sit on the group advising government on what replaces it, and I say plainly why the framework we are working from is already three generations behind a world of agentic AI and, before long, accessible quantum computing. The second half of the conversation is about people rather than policy. I explain why so many AI initiatives fail when leaders underestimate the knowledge held by their own staff, why thirty seconds of audio is enough to clone someone's voice, and why I can build a convincing deepfake of a bank's CEO in about half an hour despite not having written code in twenty years. We discuss where responsibility sits when AI causes harm, whether South Africa could conceive of something like a Road Accident Fund for AI, and why using these tools remains a luxury for people who have connectivity, a decent device and the capacity at the end of a working day. I also make the case that the expertise we need is already here, in South African startups you have never heard of and in the African women in AI I work with every day, whose voices need to shape this technology rather than react to it. My thanks to Koni Mudau and the Tech Talk with Vodacom team for a generous and searching conversation. Watch the full episode: https://now.vodacom.co.za/podcast/reg... Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4IqU...