Praises from Bloomberg over Malaysia’s AI policies

MALAYSIA has received praises from a Bloomberg columnist on the country’s policies governing Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially in applying it into daily lives of the civil service.

Catherine Thorbecke, a seasoned journalist on tech matters in Asia said that Malaysia is doing just that, turning to AI to help with some of the tedious parts of governing.

She even asked if the United States can perhaps emulate some of Malaysia’s policies.

AI is a major initiative under the Digital Ministry headed by DAP deputy chairman Gobind Singh Deo whereas Bloomberg is a global news provider, specialising in finance, capital, politics and tech.

Its platforms include television, radio, and print, as well as online, offering analysis financial tools.

AI has its downside

Thorbecke wrote that Malaysia had earlier announced a plan to roll out Google’s Gemini AI tools to nearly half a million civil servants as part of a broader top – down push to help make its workforce more efficient by using AI computing analysis as a guide.

The stakes are higher when it comes to relying on this technology to help run a democracy where people never elected machines to public office, she stressed.

“There are still many examples of AI messing up or going rogue. But the reality is that AI is likely coming for swaths of repetitive office work, including within government. Malaysia is not alone in seeking ways to automate some of these tasks.”

But she also cautioned that AI is in effect not fully accurate, citing that w ithin days of Kuala Lumpur’s announcement, Google launched a Super Bowl ad that touted how Gemini could help a cheese-shop owner in the United States grow their business online.

In the commercial, however, its AI programme spit out an inaccurate statistic about Gouda consumption.

And this isn’t the first time Google’s generative AI products have run into trouble.

If these tools are getting it wrong when it comes to cheese, it’s hard to imagine they are ready to draft policies, she said.

Doing a lot of things right

But Thorbecke said that despite these concerns, Malaysia seems to be doing a lot of things right.

“It’s going slowly, working with stakeholders to build trust, and offering transparency to the public along the way. The government launched a National AI Office to work with the private sector to implement the new technology. The office has laid out near-term goals and committed to publishing report cards on its progress.”

Before bringing Google’s AI to 445,000 workers, Malaysia also launched a smaller test run.

And officials are working on public sector AI adaptation guidelines, expected to be released later this month, she added.

The Digital Ministry had reportedly hoped that workers will be able to use these advanced tools to help draft policy papers, analyse data better, enhance public engagement besides conserving time.

“It’s a far cry from what some prominent researchers are calling an “AI coup” happening in Washington under Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE (whose acronym is a meme cryptocurrency) in the United States,” said Thorbecke.

Despite sowing widespread chaos across the federal government under the banner of cutting waste, little is known about the people running DOGE who have been given this immense power to upend agencies, she pointed out, as an example of how the world’s superpower could emulate Malaysia.

“In Malaysia, we at least know that Google’s products are being used, and local media was invited to demonstrations about how they can be employed.”

Ultimately, AI still isn’t up to the task of governing.

Writing new policies, defending them to the public, and implementing them still takes an immense amount of critical human decision-making.

It’s hard to imagine America’s founding fathers using a chatbot to write the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.

There are still ways that AI tools can be used to assist in the workplace and boost productivity.

But right now much more attention will be placed on the emerging technology’s missteps – especially when it comes to government use.

Malaysia’s approach is aimed at providing civil servants with “gen AI assistants,” and not replacing the workers.

“The goal isn’t to remove the humans.”

But, Thorbecke says it is to free them up to focus on more complex tasks.

“This approach has a greater chance of success, though authorities must maintain transparency along the way,” she said.