What do TikTok's layoffs in Malaysia signal for AI development in the country?

TikTok has reportedly laid off more than 700 workers from its Malaysian unit. The layoffs come as the company shifts focus toward the greater use of AI in content moderation. 

"We're making these changes as part of our ongoing efforts to further strengthen our global operating model for content moderation," said TikTok when A+M reached out. "We expect to invest US$2 billion globally in trust and safety in 2024 alone and are continuing to improve the efficacy of our efforts, with 80% of violative content now removed by automated technologies."

According to sources who spoke to Reuters, several hundred employees will be impacted globally as part of TikTok's wider plan to improve its moderation operations. Currently, TikTok reportedly employs a mix of automated detection and human moderators to review content posted on the social media platform. 

Don't miss: What does Malaysia need to do to establish itself as the tech hub of Asia?

AI has been fast on the rise in Malaysia. In September this year, communications minister Fahmi Fadzil said that the country can emulate China's technological and technical expertise

In a statement, the minister said that the technology developed by China Media Group (CMG) seeks to improve the quality of broadcasting content by taking into account artificial intelligence (AI) which is increasingly widely used today.

China has also pioneered ultra-high definition 8K broadcasting, said Fahmi. The minister then expressed his excitement to see young people serving CMG in producing either AI or augmented reality (AR) content, as well as several new types of technology. 

Additionally, prime minister Anwar Ibrahim reportedly said last month that Malaysia will be focusing on projects that will benefit the country in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and data technology.

Speaking at the Ilmuan Malaysia Madani forum in September, the minister said that AI is required to establish a data centre and that cheap energy and water to move and cool the operating systems are no longer sufficient, reported Malay Mail. 

Anwar reportedly used projects such as Nvidia in Johor as an example of how technology needs to be improved in order to remain relevant. 

The impact of AI 

However, does Bytedance's AI-related layoffs signal a move towards an AI-driven future in Malaysia? 

Serm Teck Choon, co-founder and CEO of Antsomi, is of the opinion that there is no co-relation between TikTok's move and the future in AI in Malaysia. "I believe this move is purely an operation optimisation where the technology is coming from TikTok global rather than the Malaysia office," said Serm.

"We shouldn’t forget that TikTok is owned by ByteDance which started to grow its business with apps such as TouTiao. TouTiao is one of the best news recommendation engines driven by AI technology and it is built in-house. With such a strength, it won’t be a surprise that TikTok could come out with a similar technology to moderate the content on the platform," he explained.

Conversely, Sandeep Mark Joseph, CEO and co-founder of Ampersand Advisory said that the layoffs "don't surprise" him. 

"It doesn’t surprise me that TikTok has cut some jobs: AI can probably filter content faster than humans. However, it would be interesting to see if AI can catch sarcasm, slang and language play, all forms of racism and politics etc. that humans might catch. Over time AI would get better, but in the short run, humans, though slower, probably can read intent better than AI," said Joseph. 

The future of AI in Malaysia

When it comes to the future of AI in Malaysia, Joseph said that it is "undeniable". This is especially since global companies are investing to set up data centres in the country. "Global Malaysian-owned companies such as YTL are also taking the lead, forming partnerships with NVidia and others, investing US$400 million in data centres in Johor," added Joseph.

Serm agrees with Joseph adding that there have been many new startups set up in Malaysia, of which, many are developing AI related applications. At the same time, there are series of AI related conferences being held in the country, said Serm.

"This is similar to those days when dotcom was booming while everyone doesn’t want to miss the opportunity in the age of AI. In order for the country to compete in the region, Malaysia must move fast to also improve its educational system to nurture more related talents as this new wave could just be the next big wave that no country can ignore, like what happened in the last 30 years of digital era (1994-2023)," added Serm.

Currently, in March this year, Google and the Malaysian government collaborated on two initiatives to equip Malaysian youth with artificial intelligence (AI) skills and to enhance public service delivery with the help of cloud-native, AI-driven productivity tools that will strengthen Malaysia’s digital competitiveness.

The first initiative involves the Ministry of Higher Education to upskill Malaysian youth from diverse backgrounds by providing 161 institutes of higher learning with 500 Google Career Certificate scholarships each until the end of 2024.

Next, 445,000 public officers will be equipped with Google Workspace tools to boost productivity across the public sector in collaboration with Jabatan Digital Negara (JDN). JDN is a government agency in charge of coordinating and implementing national and public sector digitalisation projects under the Ministry of Digital.

Ambrish Chaudhry, head of strategy, Southeast Asia and India, said that AI is poised for strong growth in Malaysia. 

"This is likely just a stumbling block in Malaysia’s burgeoning tech story. It is becoming an attractive destination for tech talent and the government is focusing on driving things forward. Malaysia is increasingly attracting a growing base of talent at home, talent coming back to the country and expat talent working with some of the largest global and home-based companies," said Chaudhry. 

He added that AI technology is already finding its way into home grown digital banks and it is likely to only grow from strength to strength. "When you look at the confluence of talent, government will and private sector partnerships; AI is poised for strong growth in Malaysia," he added. 

A global impact

Milind, ai scientist at Mercedes who was expressing independent views said that changes driven by AI will be felt across all countries, and not just Malaysia.

"What I can say is that developments in AI technology and capabilities will have a large impact on organisations, industries and society. In fact, the main reason why I go and speak at events is to try and increase awareness of this fast-approaching change and how to try and prepare for it," said Milind in conversation with A+M.

"AI capability increase will lead to organizational restructuring more and more. This has already started, and some examples are SAP's move to replace 8000 people with people with GenAI skills and Klarna replacing significant part of their customer service staff with AI. Tese changes are driven by overall AI capability increase and will not be limited to any country," he added.

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