We’re not ready for AI and it’s already too late to ignore it

SHAH ALAM - As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly embedded in education, governance, finance and daily communication, Malaysia faces a dual challenge: managing the risks of a rapidly evolving technology while also confronting long-standing weaknesses in its own institutional systems.

For Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia education expert Dr Anuar Ahmad, the priority is to build preparedness through stronger laws and deeper public understanding, while independent scholar and researcher Dr Sharifah Munirah Alatas argued that the concern goes further — that AI is now exposing and amplifying structural problems already embedded in higher education.

Together, their perspectives highlighted a central question: is Malaysia ready not only for AI, but also for what AI reveals about its institutions?

Anuar said countries that manage AI effectively tend to act on two fronts simultaneously: strengthening legal frameworks and expanding public education.

He stressed that AI regulation must go beyond isolated policies and instead cover interconnected sectors such as communications, banking, cybersecurity, data protection, and child safety. Without a comprehensive approach, he warns, regulatory gaps could be exploited for fraud, misinformation and digital manipulation.

“It is important to ensure that our legal framework is comprehensive and that there are no loopholes allowing AI to be misused by irresponsible parties,” he said.

He added that of equal importance is AI literacy. Children must be taught from an early age not only how to use AI tools, but also how to evaluate them critically — distinguishing between verified information and machine-generated content that may be inaccurate or misleading.

This effort, however, cannot rest solely with schools. Parents, educators, communities and non-governmental organisations all have a role to play in building awareness of digital safety, including online fraud prevention and child protection in digital spaces.

Anuar also cautioned that the risks of AI are unevenly distributed. Children, women and individuals with lower digital literacy are particularly vulnerable to manipulation in an environment increasingly shaped by AI-generated content, fake accounts and automated misinformation.

As digital systems become more sophisticated, he warned, the ability to distinguish truth from fabrication will become a core survival skill. This makes early education and continuous awareness not optional, but essential, he added.

While Anuar focused on preparedness and protection, Sharifah Munirah highlighted a more structural concern: that AI is entering an academic system already struggling with credibility and governance issues.

She supported the introduction of stronger AI laws, including a dedicated AI Act, particularly to address emerging forms of fraud and misuse. However, she warned that regulation alone is insufficient if deeper problems in higher education remain unresolved.

According to her, Malaysian academia has long been affected by issues such as mediocrity, weak governance and unethical practices — problems that predate AI but are now being intensified by it.

Sharifah Munirah, who is the past chair of Pergerakan Tenaga Akademik Malaysia (Gerak), highlighted concerns that generative AI may be used not only for learning and productivity but also for unethical academic practices.

One example is what she described as superficial content restructuring — where existing work is lightly rewritten using AI tools, with altered phrasing or titles, but without producing genuinely new knowledge.

Such practices, she argued, may inflate publication output and help institutions meet performance indicators, but they do not contribute meaningfully to innovation or intellectual advancement. Instead, they risk undermining academic integrity while reinforcing systems that prioritise quantity over quality.

These problems, she added, are not unique to Malaysia but reflect global pressures in academia. However, she argued that weak governance structures can make their impact more severe in local contexts.

Sharifah Munirah emphasised that AI should not be viewed as the root cause of academic decline, but as a force that exposes existing vulnerabilities. Without addressing structural issues in universities — including governance, accountability and academic standards — AI may simply accelerate existing patterns of dysfunction.

In this sense, she said, Malaysia’s challenge is not only to regulate AI, but also to confront long-standing issues in higher education that have been left unresolved for decades.