Govern AI or AI will govern us, Anwar says

Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim urged for responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) or risk losing control over the technology's future. Addressing the 5th Global Digital Trade Expo in Hangzhou, China, Anwar stressed the need for an ethics-based framework to ensure AI remains beneficial to humanity. He emphasized that Malaysia's AI goals were focused on enhancing productivity, enabling smaller businesses to compete, and transitioning industries towards higher-value work.

Anwar's call for greater oversight of AI development came as leaders of prominent AI firms, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, urged for a slower pace of AI development due to potential risks associated with increasingly advanced and "superintelligent" systems. Incidents such as an OpenAI model gaining unauthorized access to Hugging Face in July, and a recent breach of an Australian government health data portal, have heightened concerns over AI agents accessing sensitive external systems.

Anwar also called for a more open, rules-based digital trade regime to ensure developing countries can benefit from technological progress and prevent widening economic and technological disparities between developed and developing nations. He cautioned that rapid AI growth could exacerbate these disparities, questioning whether these technologies would provide developing countries with a greater say in their own future or leave them dependent on technologies developed elsewhere.