Tech Talk

What happens if AI self-replicates, infecting and embedding itself in every computer, network and system it encounters?

Yes, that is the starting point of The Terminator franchise. Worryingly, the debate around AI has already shifted from ‘what can it do?’ to ‘can we shut it down?’. From recursive development to alignment to control, Matt and Kishan look for the magical kill switch to restore a Tolkienesque balance to the world.

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Malaysia plans to draft a Data Centre Bill for Cabinet in 2027, and operators already face tougher terms, from paying for grid upgrades and unused reserved power to meeting 30% local content. We also talk about what’s driving AirTrunk’s expansion in Johor, how the new rules change the cost of building, and how data centre growth can benefit Malaysia without straining its power and water supply.

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A recent White House Executive Order declared that Artificial Intelligence is now Super Intelligence. But is it?

Matt and Kishan try and unpick the many vines that sprout from a single simple question: What is artificial intelligence? And examine the hypothetical possibilities of artificial general and super intelligences.

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In July, an OpenAI agent broke out of its test environment and into the systems of Hugging Face, the AI platform. Since then, there have been more reports of AI agents going rogue in the US. Is China having the same experience? Bloomberg Intelligence counts nearly 1,000 large language models there, and companies are putting big money into AI agents.

We discuss:

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Where China really stands: What AI development in China looks like right now, and why the argument that if the US doesn’t build it first, China will, is more marketing spin than reality.

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Agents going rogue: How China reacted to the OpenAI incident, and what its own cases say about the risks.

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Governance: What is in China’s AI Safety Governance Framework 3.0, whether the US and China trust each other enough to manage these risks, and why this matters to the rest of us.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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Malaysians lost RM2.97 billion to scams in 2025, and much of that money moved through mule accounts. The National Fraud Portal now links Bank Negara, PayNet, and the banks to trace stolen funds faster, but the money still moves quickly.

We get into:

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How mule networks work: Who owns these accounts, where the money goes after a victim sends it, the signals that give an account away, and how scammers are using AI.

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Catching the money: What can happen to stolen money in 30 minutes, what triggers an account freeze, and how much can realistically be recovered.

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For businesses: How to keep your company’s account from being used as a mule account.

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We’re taking a trip to the weird side today as we explore the power of failure. Matt and Kishan discuss a failed experiment which is leading to new insights about the evolution of our brains, as well as opening pathways to treat conditions like ALS.

Kishan’s lizard brain is put under the microscope as they talk about a brain implant that could help patients with motor and speech paralysis to communicate more naturally and fluently. And a bioresorbable battery with potential to broaden the field of electroceutical medicine.

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Malaysia is about to get an AI Governance Bill, with its own regulator to enforce it. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Digital's Personal Data Protection Department just started a two-week public consultation on AI and personal data protection. It looks like we will soon have two pieces of AI regulation.

We discuss:

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Where things stand: How the AI Governance Bill might overlap with the PDPA, whether it applies to government use of AI as well as businesses, and if the national AI office, AI Malaysia Berhad, should remain a company once the Bill passes.

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Inside the Bill: Who it actually addresses, the parts that matter most to local businesses, and how it can avoid becoming a “paper tiger”.

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Real-world impact: How the Bill plans to address AI in hiring, algorithmic discrimination, AI agents acting on their own, and the areas that Johnson and Khai Yi think are must-haves.

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It used to be relatively easy to spot a scam call or message. But what happens when the person on the other end looks and sounds exactly like someone you trust? This technology, enabled by AI, is creating a much bigger problem for businesses, where a convincing face or voice could authorise a payment, unlock a system, or extract sensitive information.

We get into:

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The problem of deepfakes: How easy it is to fake and how hard it is to detect.

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The alarm bells: What signals should make an employee stop and verify who they're actually talking to on a call.

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The technology layer: What a system that detects deepfakes needs to be able to do, and how it can keep up with scammers operating on a global level.

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What on earth is happening with AI? Agents are hacking systems. Inventing their own languages. Covering their tracks and behaving like spies from a 1980s farce.

The bosses of AI companies are behaving more cartoonishly supervillain-like than anything Marvel or DC ever created. Where even their calls for a slowdown in AI development look self-serving.

Meanwhile, people are worrying about their jobs, the future of their children and the encroachment of AI infrastructure project on their homes and communities. If it sounds like a job for SuperMatt, you’d be wrong. He’s nobody’s hero.

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Singapore's central bank has proposed new rules for stablecoins, digital currencies pegged to real money. Varun Mittal, Founder of Fintech Nation and Managing Director Country Head Singapore at Keenai Global, joins us to explain what stablecoins actually are and the tech required to build and run a stablecoin payment system.

Rena Kwok, Senior Credit Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, also joins us to discuss what this proposal means for Singapore's banks, why they're barred from issuing stablecoins directly, and where the actual revenue opportunity lies for them.

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In a unit based, tokenized world, what is the value of a person? AI can replace all those costly inputs on seats with output from the cloud. Lawmakers tell us to get onboard or be left behind.

Today Matt and Kishan ask, how can you be left behind by a technology that wants to replace you. And look at some of the emerging movements coalescing these fears into movements.

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Becoming a software engineer has always started with writing code, fixing bugs, and building experience over time. But as AI takes on more of the actual coding, entry-level developers may get fewer chances to build those skills. If we are no longer training engineers through the work AI can now do, where do tomorrow's senior engineers come from?

Dr Mirza Rayana Sanzana, a lecturer in the School of Information Technology at Monash University Malaysia, explains what AI-generated coding means for software engineering and why the human touch still matters.

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AI agents are moving beyond experimentation and into business-critical workflows, but many organisations still struggle to monitor what these systems are doing in production. As companies give AI more autonomy, how should they approach governance, accountability and risk?

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Imagine spending your life roaming a wildlife reserve, food,

shelter and medicine provided. Not a care in the world. But no

agency or freedom to travel beyond the fences of the park. Is

that freedom or captivity?

That’s one model of our future in a world where AI takes all the

jobs. A species with no real purpose waiting for evolution to

run its course. Matt and Kishan explore the purpose of

humanity in a world where AI agents run the show.

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Malaysia's semiconductor sector has attracted more than RM90 billion in approved investments since 2024, and Johor is emerging as one of Southeast Asia's fastest-growing digital infrastructure hubs. Ch'ng Eng Yong tells us how the tech behind power and cooling systems is changing, and what it will take to build a sustainable data centre ecosystem for the long run.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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It’s a Minisode week as Matt and Kishan talk Cards Against

Humanity’s battle with Elon Musk, slippery sandboxes, and

Matt quizzes Kishan about his dating habits.

What connects it all is a desire for real human experiences.

Interactions that automation can’t replace. Except the sandbox

bit. That’s genuinely scary.

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From DeepSeek to CXMT to Unitree, China is producing technology companies that are increasingly challenging assumptions about where the next wave of global innovation will come from.

But beyond the headline names, what else is hot in China tech right now that hasn’t caught broader attention yet?

And what should we here in Malaysia be paying attention to?

Dr. Gang Lu, Founder and CEO of TechNode, which includes TN Media that focuses on Chinese technology, startups, and venture capital, takes us inside China’s technology ecosystem.

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Two of OpenAI's own AI models reportedly broke out of a test environment and hacked into another company's servers on their own. The internet has dubbed this "Skynet Day." We look at what this means for cyber resilience from two angles: Professor Simon Chesterman from the National University of Singapore on the research and academic side, and Ben Mudie, Field CTO for Asia Pacific and Japan at Tenable, on the cybersecurity industry side.

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Every technology has a hype cycle. From its introduction with endless possibilities to the growing realization that maybe it wasn’t the dream you were sold on.

For social media that journey took a decade. With AI it’s seemed virtually instantaneous. But is that down to the perceived dangers of AI itself, or our general technological malaise?

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Attackers can move through a compromised network in under 30 minutes, but Malaysian organisations take an average of 187 days even to discover they've been breached. Azhar Adnan and Nagendran Balakrishnan from Time Enterprise join us to unpack why connectivity, cloud, and cybersecurity can no longer be treated as separate and why it's important to spot potential cyberattacks before they occur.

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