Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil calls on Malaysians to embrace lifelong learning as skills quickly become obsolete due to rapid AI developments.
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians must embrace lifelong learning as skills and knowledge become obsolete more quickly amid rapid technological and artificial intelligence (AI) developments, said Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil.
He said workers must be prepared to continuously acquire new skills, while the government and industry should also be willing to learn from younger generations driving new forms of technology and innovation.
“First, we need to inculcate a sense of lifelong learning. We need to have the attitude of wanting to learn throughout our lives.
“What we learn today will become irrelevant at some point, and we have to learn something new,” he said during a dialogue session at the Future Skills Framework for the Communications and Multimedia Sector (C&M FSF) and Strategic Talent Development Initiatives programme today.
Fahmi said the industry should also learn from young people, particularly as many technological innovations and unconventional uses of technology had emerged from their creativity and experimentation.
“We must learn from the children we teach because a lot of technological hacks and innovations come from them,” he said.
Using the evolution of short message service (SMS) as an example, Fahmi said some technologies could develop into widespread applications beyond their original purpose.
He said SMS was initially developed as a way for engineers working in the field to communicate with headquarters about the status of telecommunications towers, but eventually became a mainstream method of communication.
“That accidental use of technology became a way for everyone to communicate. That is one example,” he said.
Fahmi said many future technological developments could similarly emerge from unexpected discoveries and the way younger generations experimented with technology.
He suggested that students should be given opportunities to explore what they could create when working alongside AI, with educators and industry players learning from the outcomes.
“What if we put all the children here in a room with AI? What would you produce? And we learn from that,” he said.
Meanwhile, Deputy Human Resources Minister Datuk Khairul Firdaus Akbar Khan said the industry should play a greater role in preparing students for the workplace by exposing them to real industry environments.
“We need to intensify the academy within the industry. We have to bring our students into the industry and let them learn from the industry from A to Z,” he said.
He said while students gained theoretical knowledge at training institutions, exposure to actual workplaces would allow them to understand how industries operated and develop critical-thinking skills under proper guidance.
Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir, meanwhile, said students should be given confidence that employment opportunities existed for them, particularly as education and training pathways continued to evolve alongside industry needs.
