Time for regulations on AI

IN a recent disturbing news article, an elderly couple was reported to have made an exhausting four-hour drive to Perak to visit an exciting attraction that was posted on social media, only to discover that it did not exist.

The trip was triggered by a picturesque cable car ride, smiling tourists and a reporter’s simulated voice, all AI-generated.

The so-called Kuak SkyRide, linking Pengkalan Hulu and Baling, was fictional. It was just an elaborate illusion.

The couple realised they were duped only when they arrived, and asked the hotel staff for directions to the park. They were misled by convincing, synthetic media that imitated reality to perfection.

This incident is not just an anecdote about misplaced trust; it’s a warning.

A different AI video scenario would be more dangerous if it used government department impersonation to create election misinformation or manipulate political figures to incite unrest.

Even more disturbing was the case of a 16-year-old Johor student arrested recently for allegedly creating and selling sexually explicit AI-generated images of his female classmates.

Using free online tools, the boy created nude deep-fakes and sold them for as little as RM2.

Police investigations found dozens of manipulated images on his phone and believe about 30 or 40 schoolmates, some as young as 14, were his victims.

This is not about mischief. It’s all about AI abuse.

Just imagine, if a teenager can do this with simple shelf software, what more can those with a bigger agenda accomplish?

These cases were not isolated events. They are early signs of a growing AI-era crisis.

The AI industry is moving fast with clear benefits to healthcare, education and productivity. But its potential for harm, through deep-fakes, misinformation and identity theft, is escalating equally fast.

What used to require a film studio to produce can now be done with just a few clicks, yet the laws remain stuck in the past.

Agencies like the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission and the Communication Ministry have begun flagging AI misuse, but they are short of a legal mandate and tools to act decisively.

Therefore, it’s time for Parliament to enact a comprehensive AI regulatory framework that mandates the clear labelling of AI-generated content, creates criminal penalties for impersonation or image abuse, and requires platforms to track and report synthetic content.

Transparency, along with accountability, needs to become a fundamental requirement instead of being added as a secondary element.

Education is equally important.

The elderly couple in the Perak case was not foolish; they were just unprepared and misled.

They failed to detect the artificial nature of the animated sequences, which were created using machine-generated imagery.

Therefore, media literacy must be taught to everyone, including older Malaysians, to raise awareness of such vulnerability.

In this new reality, digital awareness is not an option but a civic necessity.

We cannot expect people to bear the burden of distinguishing truth from fiction alone.

This responsibility must fall on regulators, lawmakers, platforms and the developers building these tools.

If left unregulated, AI will continue to exploit us, not because it is malicious, but because no one stopped it.

AI can be a force for good only if we place strong, enforceable guardrails around how it is used.

The cable car ride that never existed and the explicit images that were totally fake are not anomalies. They are symptoms of a larger failure to anticipate what AI, in the wrong hands, can do.

The question is no longer about whether AI will shape Malaysian society.

The question now is whether we will act before AI shapes the foundations of trust, identity and truth.