The issue of the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the world of journalism became a big issue two weeks ago when a mistake on the Malaysian flag angered the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. At the same time, the number of journalists losing their jobs due to being replaced by AI is also increasing, which is also having an impact on Malaysia. Minister of Communications, Datuk Fahmi Fadzil, was quoted yesterday as saying that his ministry is ready to discuss guidelines for the use of AI in journalism.
The government is ready to hold discussions with the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) to harness the potential of AI and not become victims of fake news, inaccurate information or misuse of AI, especially in the media industry. He also pledged to spend time this week to at least collect initial input from the NUJ.
As industry players, we also feel that guidelines on the use of media intellectual property to train AI models also need to be discussed. In the United States and Europe, for example, there are several lawsuits against OpenAI and Meta for violating the intellectual property of authors to train AI models.