airmap.my
REVIEW
rev 2026-06
Roadmap vs Reality › Responsible AI, then & now
Independent Review · Analysis

Responsible AI, then & now

Not everything was abandoned. The roadmap’s seven Responsible-AI principles survived — carried almost word-for-word into the governance that followed.

Principles 7Carried into AIGE (2024)Next statutory law

Not everything in the roadmap was abandoned. Its seven Responsible-AI principles are the clearest example of something that survived — carried forward, almost verbatim, into the governance that followed. This page traces that thread, because it is the part of the AI-Rmap with the strongest claim to a legacy.

It is also a useful corrective. A review that only catalogued failures would be incomplete and unfair. The principles show the roadmap getting something right and durable.

The throughline

From roadmap principles to national guidelines

2021 — AI-Rmap principles

  • Fairness
  • Reliability, safety & control
  • Privacy & security
  • Inclusiveness
  • Transparency
  • Accountability
  • Pursuit of human benefit & happiness
  • Status: principles stated; no enforcement body

2024 — AIGE guidelines

  • Fairness
  • Reliability, safety & human control
  • Privacy & security
  • Inclusiveness
  • Transparency
  • Accountability
  • Pursuit of human benefit / human-centricity
  • Status: published guidelines; law to follow

The seven principles carried across essentially unchanged — the strongest line of continuity between the roadmap and what came after.

What actually happened to the principles

2021
Principles stated in the AI-Rmap
Seven Responsible-AI principles set out under Strategy 1, to be operationalised by an Ethics committee and an AI Code of Ethics — via the AI-CIU that never formed.
Sept 2024
MOSTI launches the AIGE guidelines
The National Guidelines on AI Governance & Ethics (AIGE), launched 20 September 2024 under the theme “AI for Malaysia, AI for All,” are explicitly built on the same seven principles and framed as supporting the AI-Rmap — among the first national AI guidelines in ASEAN.
2024–25
Voluntary, and under pressure
AIGE is voluntary. Officials acknowledged that generative AI was straining voluntary guidance and that existing laws would need amending — setting up the move toward binding rules.
2026
Toward a statutory framework
A risk-based AI governance framework / bill is expected at Cabinet, intended to give the principles legal force through the National AI Office.

A telling detail

The AIGE was launched by MOSTI — the roadmap’s author — yet the opening address was given by the Digital Minister. That single event captures the whole transitional moment: the old ministry still holding the ethics work it began, the new ministry already speaking for AI. The principles bridged the handoff even as the institutions changed beneath them.

Independent analysis

The principles are from the National AI Roadmap 2021–2025 (MOSTI; archived here). The AIGE was launched by MOSTI on 20 September 2024, built on the same seven principles and framed as supporting the AI-Rmap; it is voluntary, with statutory measures anticipated. The seven-principle wording is reproduced from public summaries of both documents.

Full sources: airmap.my/sources. Independent of MOSTI, the Ministry of Digital and NAIO.

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