Tag: AI governance Page 1 of 2

Refining, not reinventing, the wheel: A look at the applicability of ASEAN’s AI governance guides in Southeast Asian contexts

On 20th May 2025

In Artificial Intelligence, Policy, Regulations

Reading time: 5 minutes

Written by Eunice Huang and Josh Lee Kok Thong

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) is reshaping industries, economies, and societies worldwide. Governments across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (“ASEAN”) intuitively understand the huge opportunity that AI can bring for their societies, and are looking for ways to foster AI innovation while carefully managing risks and challenges. At the same time, there is also growing recognition that it would be neither appropriate nor sufficient to mimic the AI regulatory approaches adopted by other jurisdictions such as the EU, China and US. Countries in ASEAN can and must chart their own regulatory pathway that is suited to Southeast Asia’s unique context, building on the region’s historically open and pro-innovation posture.

This article submits that ASEAN governments already have good, context-adapted regional resources they can use as a basis for their domestic AI governance frameworks. In particular, resources such as the ASEAN Guide on AI Governance and Ethics (February 2024) and the Expanded ASEAN Guide on AI Governance and Ethics on Generative AI (January 2025) (collectively, the “ASEAN Guides”) can serve as valuable reference points for ASEAN governments who are considering their AI governance options. These guides provide a contextually-relevant basis for formulating AI governance in Southeast Asia’s unique context. Drawing reference from these guides will also help promote greater interoperability and common standards across ASEAN. This will in turn enable AI innovation to flourish across the region, boosting ASEAN’s overall competitiveness, and advancing the ASEAN Economic Community.

Terry Ng: Is there such a thing as AI law?

By Josh Lee

On 10th January 2025

In Artificial Intelligence, Data Privacy, Policy, Regulations

Reading time: 18 minutes

Written by Terry Ng Tian Yu | Edited by Josh Lee Kok Thong

LawTech.Asia is proud to collaborate with the Singapore Management University Yong Pung How School of Law’s LAW4060 AI Law, Policy and Ethics class. This collaborative special series is a collection featuring selected essays from students of the class. For the class’ final assessment, students were asked to choose from a range of practice-focused topics, such as writing a law reform paper on an AI-related topic, analysing jurisdictional approaches to AI regulation, or discussing whether such a thing as “AI law” exists. The collaboration is aimed at encouraging law students to analyse issues using the analytical frames taught in class, and apply them in practical scenarios combining law and policy.

This piece, written by Terry Ng, argues that “AI law” as a body of law exists. In doing so, Terry studies the emergence of “hard” AI laws around the world, existing laws that apply to AI and the relevance of “soft” AI law initiatives.

Alyssa Minjoot: Exploring and analysing South Korea’s approach to AI regulation

By Josh Lee

On 26th December 2024

In Artificial Intelligence, Data Privacy, Policy, Regulations

Reading time: 18 minutes

Written by Alyssa Asha Minjoot | Edited by Josh Lee Kok Thong

LawTech.Asia is proud to collaborate with the Singapore Management University Yong Pung How School of Law’s LAW4060 AI Law, Policy and Ethics class. This collaborative special series is a collection featuring selected essays from students of the class. For the class’ final assessment, students were asked to choose from a range of practice-focused topics, such as writing a law reform paper on an AI-related topic, analysing jurisdictional approaches to AI regulation, or discussing whether such a thing as “AI law” existed. The collaboration is aimed at encouraging law students to analyse issues using the analytical frames taught in class, and apply them in practical scenarios combining law and policy.

This piece, written by Alyssa Minjoot, explores and analyses South Korea’s approach to AI regulation. It examines how South Korea has been able to take a forward-thinking, proactive and novel approach in formulating AI policies and guidance, while examining the need for clearer and more stringent AI regulations to deal with higher-risk AI systems.

Delvine Tan: Exploring and analysing Japan’s approach to AI regulation

By Josh Lee

On 25th December 2024

In Artificial Intelligence, Data Privacy, Policy, Regulations

Reading time: 17 minutes

Written by Delvine Tan Hui Tien | Edited by Josh Lee Kok Thong

LawTech.Asia is proud to collaborate with the Singapore Management University Yong Pung How School of Law’s LAW4060 AI Law, Policy and Ethics class. This collaborative special series is a collection featuring selected essays from students of the class. For the class’ final assessment, students were asked to choose from a range of practice-focused topics, such as writing a law reform paper on an AI-related topic, analysing jurisdictional approaches to AI regulation, or discussing whether such a thing as “AI law” existed. The collaboration is aimed at encouraging law students to analyse issues using the analytical frames taught in class, and apply them in practical scenarios combining law and policy.

This piece, written by Delvine Tan Hui Tien, explores and analyses Japan’s approach to AI regulation. It examines the principles, reasons and examples behind Japan’s approach to traditional AI and generative AI.

The Evolution of Legal Ethics with the Advent of Legal Technology: LRD Colloquium Vol. 1 (2020/06)

By Josh Lee

On 23rd December 2020

In Access to Justice, Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Hackers, Legal Innovation, Policy, Regulations

Reading time: 18 minutes

Written by Jennifer Lim Wei Zhen^* and Lee Ji En^**

Editor’s note: This article was first published by the Law Society of Singapore as part of its Legal Research and Development Colloquium 2020. It has been re-published with the permission of the Law Society of Singapore and the article’s authors. Slight adaptations and reformatting changes have been made for readability.

ABSTRACT

The advent of new technologies has presented (i) legal technological tools which assist lawyers in dispensing legal services (e.g. Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’)-powered eDiscovery, contract review and legal research tools); and (ii) technologies which shaped the type of legal services lawyers offer or adopt (e.g. smart contracts, online and decentralised dispute resolution).

This paper explores the scope and extent of ethical duties that should be imposed on practitioners in terms of (i) the duty to advise clients on new technologies that would facilitate the best running of their cases; (ii) the duty to advise clients on considering the existence of these new legal services and adopting them in their work products; and (iii) the duty to ensure that the tools used comply with the necessary ethical and professional standards.