Would you trust artificial intelligence to help run your country? Malaysia is doing just that. The Southeast Asian nation 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 make its workforce more efficient and help with the more tedious parts of governing.
The stakes are higher when it comes to relying on AI to help run a democracy, since people never elected machines to office. There are many examples of AI messing up or going rogue, but the reality is that AI is likely coming for swathes of repetitive office work, including within government.
Malaysia is not alone in seeking ways to automate some of these tasks. Yet it still seems like quite a bit could go wrong. Within days of Kuala Lumpur’s announcement, Google launched a Super Bowl ad touting how Gemini could help a cheese-shop owner in the US grow its business online. However, its AI program spit out an inaccurate statistic about Gouda consumption.
If these tools are getting elementary cheese data wrong, it’s hard to imagine them drafting public policies.
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Despite these concerns, Malaysia seems to be on the right track. It is going slowly, working with stakeholders to build trust and offering transparency to the public. A National AI Office, launched by the government to work with the private sector to implement the new technology, has laid out near-term goals and committed to publishing progress report cards.
Before bringing Google’s AI to 445,000 workers, Malaysia also launched a smaller test run. Officials are also working on public sector AI adaptation guidelines, expected to be released later this month. The government says that it hopes workers will be able to use these tools to help draft policy papers, analyse data, enhance public engagement and save time.
All this is a far cry from what prominent researchers are calling an “AI coup” in Washington under America’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) run by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Despite sowing widespread chaos across the federal government under the banner of cutting waste, little is known about the people running DOGE. The group has a website tallying supposed savings, which has faced criticism for errors and inadequate transparency about its processes.
In the US, there seems to be an over-arching AI strategy at play that’s aimed at replacing as many human jobs as possible with machines, but this has never been clearly laid out or articulated. If that is the case, Musk and the Trump administration must move much slower to build and maintain trust. The billionaire now posts updates about DOGE’s work on X, the social media platform he owns, while also spearheading an AI startup.
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Delegating swathes of government work to AI empowers people in the tech industry that create and controls these machines. In Malaysia, we at least know whose products are being used. Local media was invited to demonstrations about how Google’s products can be employed.
The products and intentions of Musk’s overhaul, meanwhile, remain cloaked in secrecy.
Some scientist claim they’ve been warned of AI being used to detect “forbidden words” in federal research funding applications, like “diversity, equity and inclusion” and “climate change.” Others suggest DOGE is working to develop a custom AI chatbot for use in the US General Services Administration. If so, people deserve to know how exactly this AI tool is being programmed.
Ultimately, AI still isn’t up to the task of governance. Writing and implementing new policies usually takes a lot of critical human decision-making. It is very hard to imagine America’s founding fathers using a chatbot to write the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.
Current AI tools could be used to assist in the workplace and boost productivity, but right now, more attention will focus on the emerging technology’s missteps—especially when it comes to government use.
Any nation’s rollout across federal agencies will inevitably be put to close public scrutiny. The outcomes could also make or break the technology’s future progress in areas where it could be beneficial.
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For now, Malaysia’s approach is aimed at providing civil servants with GenAI ‘assistants,’ and not replacing workers. The stated goal isn’t to remove humans, but 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.
As more countries turn to AI for help with government efficiency, they should remember that moving fast and breaking things might work in Silicon Valley, but not in governance. ©Bloomberg
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