Governments across Southeast Asia are struggling with the arrival of artificial intelligence, both its endless possibilities that can improve everyday life and the threats posed by organized crime and the scam industries that have taken hold in the region.

Singapore-based David Tan, co-director of the Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & the Law, says the predominant issues evolve around what he calls the three Ps: permanence, proliferation, and perniciousness. 

“We only need to regulate what’s truly important – what’s really pernicious, that proliferates, and has that permanent digital memory,” he said, adding: “Intimate sexual images, child abuse images, whether digital or not, that should be a priority.”

Tan, who also heads Intellectual Property at the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business at the National University of Singapore, spoke with The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt about how to combat the negative impact and AI’s reach into financial markets, public health, and pop culture.

Common law and legislation are key, as are online safety commissions. These commissions have been deployed by a core group of eight countries, Singapore and South Korea among them, where national authorities coordinate across borders through the Global Online Safety Regulators Network.

But Tan said the industrialized scam industry is here to stay, with crime syndicates expected to grow and continue taking advantage of AI and in particular, deep fakes.

“I think that one just has to be more vigilant as to the kind of fakes we get,” he said.