ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) dominates today’s strategic and intellectual discourse.
From predictive algorithms to autonomous systems, AI is often cast as the protagonist or antagonist of our collective future. But beneath the surface of this technological fascination lies a quieter, more corrosive force: indifference.
Indifference is no longer just being passive. It has now become systemic. It is the normalisation of suffering, the erosion of empathy, and the strategic silence that allows injustice to unfold unchallenged.
While AI may challenge our ethics, indifference dissolves them. In the architecture of tomorrow’s world, it is indifference and not artificial intelligence, that poses the greater existential threat.
INDIFFERENCE AS A SYSTEMS FAILURE
In terms of foresight, indifference is a failure of attention. It is the blind spot in our scenario planning, the unmodeled variable in our simulations — the black elephant. It manifests not just as a lack of data, but also as a lack of care.
It is embedded into the very systems we rely on to shape the future.
We see this in the way humanitarian crises are treated as background noise, in the way climate collapse is met with procedural delay. It is also apparent in the way AI itself is deployed — often without moral foundation, amplifying biases and disengagement.
Indifference is not the opposite of action; rather, it is the infrastructure of inaction.
CASE STUDIES IN STRATEGIC APATHY
To understand the scale of this threat, we must examine how indifference plays out across global flashpoints:
1. Gaza: A livestreamed catastrophe
Over the past two years, over 67,000 individuals have died amid Israel’s intensified military campaign in Palestine. Human infrastructure has collapsed, while over two million people face starvation-level deprivation.
Meanwhile, global response remains muted — multilateral institutions issue statements as aid is delayed and accountability is evaded. The world watches but does not act.
2. Sudan: A forgotten war
Sudan’s civil conflict has displaced millions and triggered one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history.
Over 30 million Sudanese require aid, yet the crisis barely registers in global discourse. The UN has requested over $10 billion (RM42.2 billion) in support, but donor fatigue and geopolitical disinterest stall action. The silence is deafening.
3. Ukraine: Strategic sympathy
Ukraine continues to resist Russian aggression, but support is increasingly politicised. Cities like Pokrovsk face existential threats, yet international aid is filtered through strategic interests rather than humanitarian imperatives.
Sympathy is conditional, while empathy is transactional.
4. Climate collapse: The slow burn of apathy
Despite irreversible ecological damage, climate action remains incremental. The poorest suffer most, yet global governance prioritises economic growth over ecological survival. The planet burns, but the response is procedural.
5. Human rights regression: The Trump effect
Amnesty International warns that the erosion of international law and the rise of authoritarian practices, accelerated by the Trump administration, have plunged the world into a brutal new era.
Indifference to dissent, refugees and minority rights is becoming institutionalised. The moral compass is spinning.
AI AS A MIRROR OF INDIFFERENCE
AI is not immune to this condition as it often reflects and reinforces it. When trained on biased data, AI systems replicate social apathy. When deployed without ethical oversight, they automate detachment.
Consider this:
– Algorithmic apathy: AI platforms prioritise engagement over apathy, amplifying outrage while suppressing care.
– Automated detachment: Decision-making tools obscure human accountability, turning moral choices into technical outputs.
– Synthetic neutrality: AI-generated content avoids taking moral stances under the guise of objectivity, reinforcing indifference as a default.
In this light, AI is not the threat; it is the mirror. It reflects the values we embed, the attention we allocate and the empathy we choose to ignore.
SCIENTISTS AND TECHNOLOGISTS: ARCHITECTS OF ATTENTION
Scientists and technologists are often portrayed as neutral builders of tools. But in the age of AI, they are also curators of moral attention. Their choices of what to model, what to optimise and what to ignore will shape the ethical terrain of our futures.
– Designing for empathy: Technologists must move beyond efficiency and accuracy to embed care into systems. This means designing algorithms that prioritise human dignity, not just engagement metrics.
– Ethical stewardship: Scientists must challenge the myth of neutrality. Every dataset, every model and every deployment carries weight. Silence is complicity.
– Narrative responsibility: As public trust in science fluctuates, technologists must become storytellers, translating complexity into meaning and innovation into moral clarity.
In foresight terms, they are not just builders of the future, but also act as framers of possibility. In their role, countering indifference is not optional. It is foundational.
INDIFFERENCE AS AN INFRASTRUCTURE
Observe and you could possibly see that indifference is not just emotional, but has become institutionalised.
It manifests across systemic layers, such as bureaucratic delay in institutions, algorithm and data fatigue within information systems, moral distancing and selective attention in society, strategic silence in diplomacy, as well as selective and transactional aid in economics.
MALAYSIA’S ROLE: DESIGNING FUTURES OF CARE
Malaysia has the opportunity to lead, not just in innovation, but in empathy. Through strategic foresight, narrative translation, and Triple Helix diplomacy, we can position ourselves as a moral compass in Asean.
This is not about soft power, but about moral power.
Imagine a regional initiative to counter indifference — not just through aid, but through narrative and anticipatory design.
Foresight must evolve. It must not only anticipate the future, but defend the values that make it worth living.
Indifference is a design flaw in our global operating system. It is solvable, but only if we treat it as a strategic threat and not just a moral failing.
Let this be a call to action to reframe foresight as a tool not just for control but for care — to restore empathy as a metric, not a mood.
And most of all, let this be a reminder to the world that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.
by: Ts Rushdi Abdul Rahim, President and chief executive officer, Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT)
Source: https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/letters/2025/10/1294466/greatest-threat-humanity-isnt-ai-its-our-indifference
