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3 months ago
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Malaysia and Delaware caught my eye this week. Two very different players, one shared ambition: shaping the future of AI on their own terms.
This week’s developments reiterate just how fast the AI landscape is evolving—and how unevenly accountability is keeping pace. From Delaware’s bold sandbox to Malaysia’s sovereign LLM ambitions, we’re tracking the policies, partnerships, and psychological side effects that matter most.
In this issue, I cover:
🧠 Top 5 AI Governance Moves This Week
Delaware’s AI Sandbox
AI Companions Linked to Lower Wellbeing
Malaysia’s Powerhouse Moves
ChatGPT Gets a Mental Health Upgrade
Google’s $1B Education Investment in US & Asian Universities
🌀 Wrap-Up + About Me
August is the month where we start feeling wistful about the end of summer, and a return to work for the final push of the year to meet business objectives. There’s just a few weekends left to capture memories at the beach, kayaking up at the lake or just spending quality time with friends and family. In spite of everything happening with AI, these moments of connection are the moments that matter. Let’s continue to treat them as such.
Our Exploitation vs Accountability Index hits 65.8 / 100 this week. You’ll see why.
Note: My weekly index was updated to add a score legend that streamlines and clarifies the scoring of each development.
Exploitation vs Accountability Index Score: 81/100
Governor Matt Meyer has signed a joint resolution launching Delaware’s AI Sandbox Program, a first-of-its-kind framework that lets innovators test AI technologies under regulatory oversight.
This initiative strikes a balance between bold experimentation and public trust, especially in sensitive sectors like corporate governance and biotech. It sets a precedent for other states to create regulatory sandboxes that encourage innovation while maintaining ethical guardrails.
📎 Source: Delaware Launches AI Sandbox Program
Exploitation vs Accountability Index Score: 42/100
New research from Stanford and Carnegie Mellon reveals that frequent use of AI chatbots for companionship correlates with lower self-reported mental health.
The study found that users who disclosed personal information to bots and lacked strong human relationships were more likely to feel isolated. This raises concerns about emotional outsourcing and the unintended psychological effects of AI companionship. The effect of Chatbots on humans continues to surface unintended psychological effect.
While companies do design in intentionally ‘sticky’/addictive features, where do we draw the line?
📎 Source: Stanford-CMU Study on AI and Mental Health
Exploitation vs Accountability Index Score: 76/100
Malaysia is positioning itself as Southeast Asia’s next AI powerhouse through a landmark RM10 billion ($2.36B) partnership between NVIDIA and YTL Power International.
The deal includes building green-powered AI data centers, deploying NVIDIA’s high-performance GPUs, and developing Malaysia’s own sovereign large language model (LLM). Investment Minister Tengku Zafrul calls it a strategic move to boost digital sovereignty and regional tech leadership.
This is a great move for Malaysia and a solid, strategic move on the part of NVIDIA who is seemingly intent on embedding their infrastructure globally.
📎 Source: Malaysia-NVIDIA AI Partnership
Exploitation vs Accountability Index Score: 72/100
OpenAI is rolling out new features designed to promote healthier digital habits and detect signs of emotional distress.
ChatGPT will now gently prompt users to take breaks during long sessions and offer more thoughtful responses to sensitive questions. The company collaborated with over 90 physicians across 30 countries to build rubrics for emotionally complex conversations.
This is a great development for ChatGPT and OpenAI. These nudges keeps ChatGPT accountable for doing its part to mitigate addiction while putting more responsibility into the hands of the user.
📎 Source: OpenAI’s Mental Health Features
Exploitation vs Accountability Index Score: 58/100
Google’s parent company Alphabet just pledged $1 billion over three years to bring AI training and tools to U.S. universities and non-profits. More than 100 schools have signed on, including heavyweights like Texas A&M and UNC.
That billion dollar investment comprises of cloud credits and free access to Gemini - so it’s not a cash investment that universities can direct as they desire. Spread across hundreds of institutions, it’s less than $3M per school over three years in the best case. This is a strategic move to embed Google’s tools in student workflows, potentially locking in future enterprise customers while using the data those students generate to improve their tools and algorithms..
There’s a clear give and take here but this investment feel more like a PR move than an intentional investment.
📎 Source: Alphabet’s $1B AI Education Pledge
This week’s top 5 AI governance moves show that AI oversight is being shaped all around by sovereigns, state leaders, tech giants and federal regulators alike.
From Delaware’s sandbox to Malaysia’s AI powerhouse ambitions, the message is clear: governance is becoming the key mechanism for protecting citizens and articulating a clear stance on AI regulation. The question is no longer whether AI will be regulated, it’s who will do it best, and how soon.
As I head into the final stretch of summer, I’m staying focused on what matters: building systems that are not just powerful, but principled. The future of AI won’t be defined by breakthroughs alone it’ll be shaped by the principles we choose to encode.
Thanks for being part of the conversation at AI Governance, Ethics and Leadership. I’m AD. I bring an engineer leader’s discipline and an MBA’s big-picture lens to the world of AI governance and policy because too much of this technology’s influence is hidden from public view. Let’s continue to shine a light on the dark places together. Join the Chat.
