Malaysia does not need to wait for Silicon Valley to define the future of artificial intelligence (AI). It already has a moral language for markets, technology and human responsibility. The question is whether we will use it in time.

On May 25, Pope Leo XIV presented Magnifica Humanitas, his first encyclical, on safeguarding the human person in the age of AI. Signed on May 15, the anniversary of Rerum Novarum, the landmark 1891 text on labour and capital, its publication signals something important: faith traditions matter more than ever when societies design machines that shape work, learning, healthcare and interpersonal trust. The central question the encyclical poses is universal, and it matters in a Muslim-majority country like Malaysia every bit as much as anywhere else. What kind of human being should technology help us become?

AI often enters organisations through modest promises: faster service, lower cost, better prediction. The second-order effects arrive later, and they are rarely announced.

Consider ordinary life in Malaysia today. A micro-entrepreneur in Kota Bharu applies for financing. A teacher in Sabah asks an AI tool to prepare lessons. A hospital in Penang uses software to prioritise appointments. A takaful provider automates claims. Each case can save time and widen access. Each case can also move judgement into code, away from people most affected by the outcome.

That is the hidden cost of artificial “smartness”. Once the target is set, the system learns to chase it single-mindedly. A bank optimising purely for low default risk alone may render informal workers invisible. A call centre optimising for short calls may rush elderly customers who struggle to articulate their needs. A school optimising for test scores may inadvertently punish curiosity. Our tools are increasingly configured to improve the metric while damaging the mission at the same time.

Malaysia has a practical advantage because it already knows how to translate values into systems. This matters for Muslim, Chinese, Indian, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, secular and multinational business leaders alike. Markets need trust. Supply chains need verification. Customers need confidence that technology will serve rather than silently sort or exclude.

Malaysia’s National Guidelines on AI Governance and Ethics provide a foundation for safe, responsible and human-centred AI. The financial sector adds further strength. Value-based Intermediation asks financial institutions to connect intent, governance, impact and accountability. The Securities Commission’s work on Sustainable and Responsible Investment shows that finance can measure returns together with wider outcomes. That combination is useful across every sector.

The discipline is straightforward, even if the execution is not. Before writing the technical specification, write the value specification. Before asking whether a model is accurate, ask what that accuracy serves. Before celebrating automation, ask whether dignity, fairness, trust and planetary cost are visible in the design. There is a compelling case for a hybrid framework connecting faith, finance and tech; one that holds value for money and values for human flourishing within planetary boundaries as a single and coherent ambition.

Here is what we consistently forget: the technology of tomorrow will be as good and bad as the people who design, deploy, and direct it. AI can summarise a report. Natural intelligence (NI) decides whether the report matters. AI can rank loan applicants. NI defines fairness. AI can detect patterns in medical data. NI notices the fear in a patient’s voice.

The future will be decided first by the quality of NI: the human capacity to aspire, feel, reason, judge, relate and take responsibility. If today’s prevailing values are speed, extraction and image management, AI will amplify them. If today’s values include amanah (trust), ihsan (excellence), maslahah (public interest), stewardship (responsible care) and dignity (human worth), AI can turn those values into operating discipline.

This is the moment, before it is too late, to pause and ask honestly whether our natural intelligence is inclined toward prosocial values, or whether change is needed before we hand AI systems greater authority over human lives.

Islamic finance gives Malaysia a practical bridge from values to tools. Consider an Islamic bank using AI for credit scoring. The narrow objective is predicting default. A prosocial objective also asks whether the system recognises informal income, avoids proxy discrimination, and expands fair access for micro and small businesses. These are not competing goals; they are a more complete definition of the mission.

In takaful, AI can speed up claims and detect fraud, but the test is whether families receive support with less friction while retaining a human route when life becomes messy. In green or social sukuk, AI can monitor energy savings, emissions, flood risk and community outcomes. In halal supply chains, it can support traceability. The deeper question is whether workers, water, soil and local communities remain visible in the data.

This is where value-based intermediation and prosocial AI converge: systems designed, tailored, trained, tested and targeted to benefit people and planet while remaining financially viable. Islamic concepts point towards trust, excellence and public benefit. Chinese business traditions place weight on reputation, relationship and continuity. Other communities bring moral vocabularies of duty, care and stewardship. The shared foundation is simple: tomorrow’s technology will reflect today’s human values, and Malaysia sits at the intersection of it all.

Many countries are competing to host data centres, attract investment and build national AI capacity. Malaysia can offer something rarer: a values-based operating model for hybrid intelligence, where the human person remains inside the system as a design requirement, not an afterthought.

For business leaders, this means writing intent before the technical specification. A chatbot should reduce waiting time without confusing elderly customers. A hiring tool should widen the talent pool rather than recycle existing bias. A productivity tool should reduce drudgery instead of increasing invisible pressure on staff. An AI dashboard should show financial return and human consequences. For policymakers, it means aligning AI governance, Islamic finance, sustainability disclosure, education and digital inclusion. For citizens, it means treating convenience as one measure of progress, not the measure.

SPIRIT is a small daily discipline for finding meaning in an ordinary hybrid day:

Tomorrow's technology will reflect today's human values. If Malaysia brings together AI capability, Islamic finance discipline, and the full depth of its plural moral inheritance, it can help define a hybrid future that is genuinely pro-people, pro-planet, and pro-potential. That would be a meaningful contribution from this country to the world.

Dr Cornelia C Walther is associate professor at Sunway University’s Institute for Global Strategy and Competitiveness (IGSC) and Senior Fellow at the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health (SCPH). She is a Senior Fellow at Harvard, the Wharton School and an external adviser on Hybrid Intelligence at UNFPA.