KUALA LUMPUR: All civil servants at the federal and state levels have been instructed to take part and complete the self-learning "AI untuk Rakyat" online learning programme launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim recently to create public awareness on artificial intelligence.
The instruction was issued by Public Service Department director-general Datuk Seri Wan Ahmad Dahlan Abdul Aziz via a circular dated Jan 17 that was shared on the department's official Facebook account today.
The circular was issued to secretaries-general of all ministries, all heads of department at the federal level, state secretaries as well as heads of all statutory bodies at the federal, state and local government levels.
"All public servants at ministries/departments/agencies at the federal level, in the states as well as statutory bodies at the federal, state and local government levels are required to complete the learning programme to obtain the AI Aware and AI Appreciate badges.
"This is to ensure the increase in awareness among public servants on the use of advanced technology.
"The participation of civil servants in the AI untuk Rakyat programme will allow the government to achieve the implementation of digitalisation initiative in the public delivery services," he said in the circular.
Wan Dahlan did not set a deadline for when public servants were required to complete the programme in the circular.
However, he said the progress of participation in the programme was to be submitted to the Economy Ministry.
Launched by Anwar on Jan 16, the self-learning online programme is a cooperation between MyDigital Corporation and Intel Corporation.
The programme, that can be accessed via www.ai.gov.my and is available in Bahasa Melayu, English, Mandarin and Tamil, is divided into two sections, namely AI Aware and AI Appreciate, which can be completed in about four hours.
When launching of the programme, Anwar had given members of the Cabinet until next month to submit a report related to the progress in the increase of awareness and literacy of AI at their respective ministries.
Anwar had also imposed the same requirements to secretaries-general, directors-general in all ministries as well as all vice-chancellors of public higher learning institutions in the country.
This follows the target set out by the government to have one million people in the country who are AI literate by year