Elina Noor

Opinion | Southeast Asia’s digital future should be more than replicas of the past

The foundational role of data in AI systems not only raises questions about consent, but is reminiscent of the colonial information gathering

Framing AI discussions through a predominantly business-focused lens diminishes the wider context in which AI operates and may not provide meaningful guarantees of social equity

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A visitor poses with an artwork on display at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara in Jakarta. Southeast Asia should be careful that its digital transformation does not replicate colonial legacies. Photo: AFP

Elina Noor

Published: 4:45pm, 1 Mar 2024Updated: 6:18pm, 1 Mar 2024

In a developing region like Southeast Asia, the promise of digital transformation, in general, and artificial intelligence (AI), in particular, is pitched as a trifecta of economic growth, administrative efficiency and social upliftment.

This is clear in both political pronouncements and the national and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) policy documents issued in recent years. It is also evident in rising capital investment. Despite global headwinds, in 2023, companies in Southeast Asia were projected to increase spending on AI solutions from US$174 million to US$646 million in 2026.

But this public-private penchant for “technocracy” – a tech-centred approach to development and governance – may be focused too narrowly on what can be measured without fully accounting for costs unseen.

For many of Southeast Asia’s economies that are plugged into the international trading system, aligning domestic legislation with extraterritorial rules such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation is a matter of practicality to facilitate cross-border digital commerce. However, a major constraint in framing AI discussions through a predominantly business-focused lens is that it diminishes the wider context in which AI operates.

What is often underappreciated is that the arc of technology travels back to history. Although the build of AI may be rational (think, mathematical equations), it is the fuzzy logic of society that really feeds and powers this technology. Nowhere is this clearer than in the role of data as the basis for AI.

02:19

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Data is a social construct, it is never neutral because it depends on who produces, relays, even reconstructs it.