Dear Lindsey Schutters,
I’m writing to you following your incisive analysis in Daily Maverick on the 14th April 2026, “Can Ubuntu principles reshape South Africa’s AI governance landscape?”. Your critique of the draft National AI Policy, particularly the warning that “a policy framework without credible, technically capable, adequately resourced enforcement is not governance – it is theatre” resonated with my views on our emergent national policy.
You rightly identified the gap between the national AI policy’s noble aspirations of Ubuntu, a human-centred deployment and the operational reality of under-resourced regulators.
It seems apropos to indicate that we are working on a submission of potential amendments to the Draft South Africa National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy – focusing on the following areas:
Clause
Problem
Policy’s Solution
Gap
4.6
AI causes harm, liability unclear
AI Insurance Superfund (modeled on RAF)
Compensates after harm, does not prevent harm
4.6
Citizens cannot challenge AI decisions
AI Ombudsperson Office
Redress only after a harmful decision is made or given by AI
7.3
High‑risk AI systems need oversight
Risk‑based approach (inspired by EU AI Act)
Risk is systemic, not psychological
9.6.2
AI decisions are opaque
Sufficient Explainability / Transparency
Explains the model, not the user’s state and the consequence of Oracular injunction
9.6.1
Humans must oversee AI
Human‑in‑the‑Loop (HITL)
Design‑level oversight, not real‑time intervention
4.6
Ethical violations (bias, privacy)
AI Ethics Board
Enforces standards, does not detect crisis in real-time
4.6
AI systems need safety guidelines
National AI Safety Institute
Guidelines are static, not adaptive
To better understand the why and wherefore of such “amendments” from ourselves, I would like to point you towards http://symanthesism.org – a website that clearly explains the foundational thought/discipline behind “Symanthesism” as well as the design, build-out and deployment of our USIC (Unified Semantic Interpretive Control) solution.
This is important for two reasons:
-
Symanthesism was formulated by an African scholar - Dr. Gabrielle Tucker (UJ PhD Alumna) in 2024/2025.
-
The USIC code was developed by myself in 2025 and is under continuous development now in 2026.
I think it is relevant to note that we have lodged a formal patent with CIPC (SA provisional patent 1544631) for the USIC concept, thus making this South Africa’s contribution to the global endeavour in AI-Ethics solutions. It is from this discipline and technical architecture, purposefully designed to operationalise those critical aspects of our national policy and especially the principles of Ubuntu, into computable safety mechanisms.
I do believe that Symanthesism offers a direct response to three of the critiques you raised:
-
Enforcement capacity: “policy without power is theatre”
-
The black box paradox: “open-ended language creates loopholes”
-
Fragmented oversight: “a bureaucratic maze where no one is accountable”
You correctly argue, that South Africa’s draft policy is philosophically ambitious but operationally vulnerable. That is exactly where Symanthesism offers a technical architecture designed to bridge that gap, by turning Ubuntu from aspiration into algorithmic safeguard.
Again, thank you for your article holding our policy-makers to account. We believe accountability requires tools, not just critique, and we’d be honoured to contribute our efforts towards that conversation.
PS: Your DM email address bounces my mail - not sure why)
Warm regards,
Nicholas H. Tucker