Hello Betamax, As with any burgeoning industry, early guidelines can be blurry. And in some cases, these guidelines tend to be brushed off, as they are, as the term suggests, just recommended practices or general rules. But as the AI landscape matures, these guidelines evolve alongside the industry. Take Vietnam, for example. Hanoi passed Southeast Asia's first standalone AI law, which went into full effect in March. If a product tackles hiring, credit scoring, or healthcare in the country, the provider is automatically in the hot seat. Vicky Feliren, an applied scientist and master's candidate at Monash University, Indonesia, highlights in this issue's featured story that most Southeast Asian AI startups are deployers, which slap a product on top of ChatGPT or some other foundation model. Under both the EU Act and Vietnam's law, the compliance burden for that product is entirely theirs, not OpenAI's. To help companies navigate the increasingly complex maze of AI regulations and guidelines, Feliren shares four steps regional firms can take to ensure compliance and mitigate risk. It's definitely worth checking out. Also in this edition, we feature my colleague Duc's update on our tracker of VC funds across the US, Southeast Asia, and India. Again, AI takes the center stage, with the industry topping our list when it comes to the number of single-sector funds. Miguel Cordon, journalist |
