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TALKING to a chatbot is not talking to the Prime Minister. That should be obvious. Apparently, it is not.
Recently, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim launched PMX AI, a digital version of himself that promises Malaysians a new way to communicate with the country's highest elected leader through WhatsApp.
Save the number, send a message and it replies in the Prime Minister's voice. The launch was celebrated as a leap forward in digital governance and public engagement.
It was neither. It was a chatbot.
No matter how sophisticated the technology or how polished the responses, PMX AI is still a large language model. It predicts words based on patterns in data. It does not think. It does not deliberate. It does not make policy. Most importantly, it does not carry responsibility for anything it says.
Yet, Malaysians were invited to treat it as a direct line to the Prime Minister. That is where the problem begins.
The platform openly admits it is not Anwar Ibrahim. It says it reflects his voice, values and perspective. Fair enough. At least it is honest about what it is.
So why pretend it is a substitute for speaking to the man himself? Good political communication narrows the distance between leaders and the people who elected them. PMX AI does the opposite. It inserts another layer between government and citizens, then packages that distance as accessibility.
Most Malaysians already know how this conversation ends. We have all argued with automated customer service. We ask a simple question and receive a polished answer that sounds helpful but solves nothing. The language is smooth. The tone is reassuring. The frustration remains.
PMX AI risks becoming exactly that. Only this time, the chatbot carries the name of the Prime Minister.
Then came an irony nobody could ignore.
Barely days after its much-publicised launch, PMX AI disappeared. The official explanation was that it had been taken offline for upgrades. Soon after, public attention shifted to the Network School controversy and the chatbot quietly vanished from the headlines.
The platform may be offline. The questions it raised are not.
Whether the shutdown was routine maintenance or an attempt to fix early problems almost does not matter. A platform introduced as the future of public engagement disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived. That alone should remind us that governments should be careful before wrapping political communication around technology that is still imperfect.
The deeper problem, however, is not technical. It is political.
Large language models can produce impressive answers. They can also produce completely false ones. They misstate facts, invent information and misunderstand context with remarkable confidence. This is not an occasional software bug. It is a recognised limitation of the technology itself.
Now imagine PMX AI explaining subsidy eligibility, tax policies or government assistance. Imagine it getting those answers wrong.
Who answers for that? Does the Prime Minister stand before the public and accept responsibility because the chatbot speaks in his name? Or does Putrajaya simply shrug and remind everyone that AI makes mistakes? This is where the politics becomes convenient.
If PMX AI gives an answer people like, the government gets to celebrate innovation. If it gives an answer that is inaccurate or misleading, everyone suddenly remembers it is "only AI".
The praise belongs to politicians. The mistakes belong to the machine. That is not innovation. That is accountability with an escape hatch.
Let us be honest.
Politicians have been giving polished, carefully worded and thoroughly rehearsed answers long before artificial intelligence existed. They hardly need AI to produce another perfectly structured paragraph that says everything and commits to nothing.
If Malaysians wanted polished answers, we already have them. What people are asking for is something much simpler. Honest ones.
The job description of a Prime Minister has never included being comfortable.
It means standing before cameras after unpopular decisions. It means facing hostile questions from journalists. It means listening to angry citizens. It means explaining why living costs continue to rise. It means admitting mistakes when mistakes happen.
If the public is angry, take the beating. That comes with the office. It cannot be outsourced to software.
But, none of this means AI has no place in government.
Use it to reduce waiting times at public agencies. Use it to process routine applications faster. Use it to help civil servants analyse data and improve services. Those are sensible applications that make government more efficient without pretending machines can replace democratic responsibility.
But do not confuse efficiency with accountability. And do not confuse a chatbot with leadership.
Technology should bring governments closer to citizens. It should not become another buffer between those who govern and those who are governed.
Malaysians did not vote for a language model. They did not elect a WhatsApp contact. They elected a Prime Minister.
If the government wants applause, it can build all the chatbots it likes.
If it wants trust, then step away from the screen, stand before the microphones, and answer the questions yourself!
Muhammad Naim Muhamad Ali, PhD, also known by the moniker Naim Leigh, is a Communication and Media Studies lecturer at the University of Wollongong Malaysia. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Sinar Daily.
