TOKYO: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said, must answer to development: raising productivity, improving public services, supporting teachers, doctors, farmers, engineers and civil servants, and helping us prepare for an ageing society before those needs overwhelm us.
In his public lecture entitled Humanity in a Human-Machine Civilization today, he said “We must resist treating AI policy as a race measured only by speed, efficiency, and scale.”
The better ambition is capability: talent, infrastructure, data governance and the confidence to decide where AI should be used, where it should be limited, and where human judgement must remain paramount, he told audience at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Tokyo.
Datuk Seri Anwar said AI will continue to advance. But it does not arrive with its purpose already written. Those purposes will be shaped by human beings, by our laws, our institutions, our markets, our universities, and our moral courage.
The question is whether we will guide this power with wisdom before it begins to guide too much of us, or worse, before it reaches that tipping point where its capabilities and growth rate are beyond human comprehension or control, posing an existential threat to humanity, he added.
In his address, the Prime Minister said he believes universities can and must contribute to ensuring that it stays on the path towards wisdom. It cannot be overstressed that the true value of education is character building compassion, kindness, integrity, generosity, and understanding in people, particularly the young.
Every civilisation, he said, depends on institutions that help human beings know the world with some measure of confidence: a university, a library, a court, a newspaper, a public archive.
“None is perfect. But together they give society a way of testing claims, preserving memory and passing judgement across generations. AI enters this world with extraordinary power,” he added.
