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PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Artif. Intell.
Sec. Technology and Law
Volume 7 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frai.2024.1411838

Governing AI in Southeast Asia: ASEAN's way forward

Provisionally accepted
Bama Andika Putra Bama Andika Putra 1,2*
  • 1 University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
  • 2 Hasanuddin University, Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Despite the rapid development of AI, ASEAN has not been able to devise a regional governance framework to address relevant existing and future challenges. This is concerning, considering the potential of AI to accelerate GDP among ASEAN member states in the coming years. This qualitative inquiry discusses AI governance in Southeast Asia in the past five years and what regulatory policies ASEAN can explore to better modulate its use among its member states. It considers the unique political landscape of the region, defined by the adoption of unique norms such as non-interference and priority over dialogue, commonly termed the ASEAN Way. The following measures are concluded as potential regional governance frameworks: 1) Elevation of the topic's importance in ASEAN's intra and inter-regional forums to formulate collective regional agreements on AI, 2) adoption of AI governance measures in the field of education, specifically, reskilling and upskilling strategies to respond to future transformation of the working landscape, and 3) establishment of an ASEAN working group to bridge knowledge gaps among member states, caused by the disparity of AI-readiness in the region.

    Keywords: ASEAN1, Southeast Asia2, artificial intelligence3, AI Governance4, governance

    Received: 03 Apr 2024; Accepted: 08 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Putra. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Bama Andika Putra, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.