WHAT does the late Indonesian President Suharto, who ruled the country for 31 years, have to do with generative AI and the need for locally developed large language models (LLMs)?

Citing the long-deceased leader as an example, AI Singapore (AISG), a nonprofit organisation connecting the country’s AI research institutions, startups, and companies, argues that Western-developed LLMs may harbour certain biases stemming from their training data and cultural context.

For instance, a version of Llama 2, the open-source LLM developed by Meta, portrayed Suharto largely negatively, emphasising his role in political suppression and human rights abuses.