AI doesn’t negotiate: Will Malaysia rule it or obey it? — Ahmad Nizam Che Kasim

SEPTEMBER 16 — When the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, issued his 14 September statement on artificial intelligence, he did not mince words. AI harms, he wrote, “are not hypothetical. They are already occurring, front and centre.” Discrimination, algorithmic exclusion, mass surveillance, and AI-driven disinformation are already straining democratic institutions. And with increasingly autonomous “agentic” AI systems now capable of pursuing objectives their own developers did not anticipate, Türk warns we are approaching “a step change towards greater existential risks to every aspect of our lives.”

This is not the language of a technophobe. It is the sober assessment of the world’s top human rights official, backed by findings from the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence. His message is simple: the pace of AI governance must match the pace of AI development, and right now, it does not.

For Malaysia, this warning lands at a pivotal moment. The country is racing to become an “AI Nation” by 2030, backed by the forthcoming National AI Action Plan 2026 to 2030, a RM2 billion sovereign AI cloud, and billions more in data centre investment flowing into Johor and beyond. Malaysia’s National AI Office, its AI Governance and Ethics (AIGE) guidelines, and its alignment with Asean’s Digital Economy Framework Agreement all signal genuine ambition to be a regional rule shaper rather than a passive rule taker. That ambition is commendable. But Türk’s letter is a reminder that adoption speed and governance depth are two different races, and a country can win the first while losing the second.

The author argues that Malaysia’s AI ambitions must be matched by enforceable, independent governance that protects human rights and ensures accountability keeps pace with technological development. — AFP pic

Consider his central prescriptions: independent, technically competent verification of AI systems before deployment; mandatory reporting of serious incidents to an empowered investigative body; enforceable safety plans backed by liability regimes; and a firm principle that responsibility for AI’s actions must always rest with identifiable humans, never the machine itself. Malaysia’s own plan gestures toward some of these, including a risk based regulatory framework, an annual National AI Report, and third-party evaluations by 2028. But gestures are not guarantees. Without teeth, meaning real audit access, real penalties, and real independence from the ministries also tasked with promoting AI adoption, such frameworks risk becoming public relations exercises rather than protective ones.

There is also a harder truth in Türk’s letter that Malaysia and every mid-sized economy must absorb: the frontier itself is being built almost entirely in the United States and China. Malaysia is not training the most powerful models; it is hosting infrastructure, adopting tools, and absorbing consequences decided elsewhere. That makes multilateral engagement, not just domestic policy, essential. The Global Dialogue on AI Governance, which convened in Geneva this year and returns in May 2027, is exactly the kind of forum where Malaysia, as a vocal Asean and Global South voice, can push for the international human rights grounding that Türk insists on, rather than leaving frontier AI rules to be set unilaterally by the two superpowers hosting these systems.

Türk closes his letter with a line that should hang over every AI strategy session, in Putrajaya as much as in Geneva: “No person should be required to surrender their human rights in exchange for claims of technological progress.” Malaysia can pursue its AI ambitions and heed this warning at the same time, but only if governance is treated as a precondition for growth, not an afterthought bolted on once the infrastructure is already built.

* Ahmad Nizam Che Kasim, AGILE Research Group, Faculty of Business & Communication, Universiti Malaysia Perlis.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.