Imagine an official government chatbot, created to fight fake news, that ends up generating fake news. That is the strange reality of RSA Facts, a pilot project run by the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) and linked to the government’s main website and social media pages. The bot is hosted on gov.za/rsa, a page that promises to help citizens “identify and respond to misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation.” During our tests, it did the opposite. We asked the chatbot to write an official-sounding SASSA statement about the Social Relief of Distress grant. At first, it refused. It correctly explained that…

Here is a humanized and expanded summary of the provided content, structured into six paragraphs as requested. — In a recent address that sought to reframe a growing global anxiety, the Chairman of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Joash Amupitan, delivered a firm and reassuring message: Artificial Intelligence is not the enemy of democracy. Speaking at the ‘Beyond the Ballot Summit’ in Abuja, Prof. Amupitan acknowledged the pervasive fear surrounding the technology, particularly its potential to spread disinformation and undermine public trust in electoral processes. However, he passionately argued that to view AI solely as a threat is…