My re-introduction to Mining Engineering at Wits & the Irony of AI’s Misleading Governance ‘Facts’

Last Friday morning, I had one of those truly humbling experiences. Instead of just ‘lecturing’ to the 3rd-Year Mining Engineering students at the
University of the Witwatersrand
, I found myself relearning some fundamental lessons.

The context, as always, mattered. When

Linda Iaccheri

first contacted me about lecturing on “Governance as a modifying factor in Reserve declarations,” I probably should have declined. But if you’ve ever engaged with her, you’ll know that her sheer passion for geology, mining, and educating the next generation is utterly persuasive.

So, of course, I said yes.

There I was, in a lecture room seemingly from the past, facing 30 or 40 young students – barely 20 years of age, trying to share hard-won lessons from 45 years in the South African mining industry. What could possibly go wrong?

I’ll admit, connecting the dots between decades of experience and the fresh perspective of a new generation proved challenging. I may not have made the impact I’d hoped for, but I did finally manage to draw a wry smile when I wrapped up with this summary:

“Governance is not Red Tape, it is the belt that holds your trousers up. Without it, everything falls apart.”

While my own contribution felt modest, I left the university incredibly impressed by Dr. Laccheri and the work she is driving at the
Wits School of Geosciences
. Her passion for geology and mining is genuinely contagious, and it will undoubtedly impact future generations of engineers, regardless of whether us ‘old toppies’ initially connect with them or not.

I learned so much, not only from her but also from

Glen Nwaila, PhD

and Prof

Grant Bybee

over lunch afterward. I left feeling inspired and comforted about the caliber of our future industry leaders.

This experience brings me back to a cautionary tale, one that ties directly into my recent post ( https://rb.gy/x7k3hh ) about the lack of verified information underpinning our new, unlimited access to online data via AI.

In preparing for the Wits talk, I was once again shocked by the incorrect and misleading information generated by the two leading AI applications I used. A simple query on the South African mining industry examples of governance successes and failures, generated truly scary examples. In most cases, the output was either outright wrong or, at best, deeply misleading.

I urge you: Go on, try it yourself. Ask an AI a simple governance or operational question about a company you know intimately, and compare the AI’s findings with your own considered understanding. The gap is often vast.

This isn’t just a curiosity; it’s a systemic risk. The information ‘commons’ is rapidly being flooded with data that is unverified, incorrect, and potentially damaging.

As an industry, and as individual companies, we need to think seriously about how to address this.

How do we ensure that verified, quality information can rise above the noise?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this challenge: How should the mining industry actively address the proliferation of ungrounded, misleading information generated by AI?

~ Z. B. S