On taxi drivers, content creators, and the meter we all manipulated.
The Meter
Before Grab arrived in Malaysia — the taxi experience was broken.
Not always. Not every driver. But enough.
The meter that ran faster than it should. The driver who refused to go to certain locations. The negotiated fare at the door that always ended in your disadvantage. The car that smelled like yesterday’s problems. The driver who couldn’t find the address and blamed you for it.
The friction was real. The manipulation was real. The passenger’s frustration was real.
So when Grab or Uber arrived, we didn’t just adopt it.
We celebrated it.
Finally. Fixed price. GPS tracked. Driver rated. Passenger protected.
We said what we always say when technology solves a human behaviour problem:
If you don’t adapt, technology will take over.
And we felt righteous saying it.
What We Didn’t Ask
We didn’t ask — who created the conditions that made Grab feel like relief?
The taxi driver did.
Not because he was a bad person. But because the system he operated in rewarded manipulation over service. The meter was his leverage. Refusing passengers was his power. The friction was his protection.
He created the problem that technology came to solve.
And we celebrated the solution — without ever sitting with that uncomfortable sequence.
The behaviour created the conditions. The technology arrived. We applauded.
Now Look At The LinkedIn Feed
The AI debate is everywhere right now.
Who’s using it correctly. Who’s using it sloppily. The right way to prompt. The wrong way to automate. The correct method of training AI to sound like you. The incorrect method of letting AI reply to your comments.
Everyone drawing lines. Everyone performing their position on the right use of technology.
And underneath all of it — a question nobody is asking out loud:
What did the content creator do to their meter?
The Meter The Content Creator Manipulated
Not every creator. Not always. But enough.
The recycled framework presented as original thinking. The borrowed insight attributed to personal experience. The 30 days of AI-scheduled posts — announced after a post complaining about AI automation. The performative vulnerability that was workshopped before it was posted. The LinkedIn carousel that summarised someone else’s book without reading it. The “hot take” that was neither hot nor a take — just a repackaging of what already performed well last week.
The manipulation wasn’t as visible as a taxi meter running fast.
But it was there.
Content that performed authenticity without being authentic. Writing that sounded like thinking without the thinking happening. Expertise borrowed so many times the original source was impossible to trace.
The feed filled up with it. Slowly. Then all at once.
And the audience — like the passenger who’d been taken on too many wrong routes — started to feel it.
Something here isn’t real.
The Status Quo
Here’s who is loudest in the AI debate right now.
Not the junior copywriter whose entry-level role disappeared before they had the chance to build seniority.
Not the illustrator whose style was scraped without consent.
Not the freelance writer whose RM500 article brief became a RM50 “just clean up this AI draft” brief.
The loudest voices are the established ones. The LinkedIn content creator with 20,000 or 2million followers. The thought leader with the speaking engagements. The personal brand consultant with the course to sell.
They’re comfortable enough to have an opinion about the correct way to use AI.
Because their position isn’t threatened yet.
So they draw lines.
AI replies — bad. AI trained on my voice — fine.
AI slop — bad. My AI-assisted content — authentic.
Automation — lazy. My scheduling tool — efficient.
Every line drawn conveniently on the side of what they’re already doing.
That’s not a principle. That’s a position being protected.
The taxi driver didn’t get to write a LinkedIn post about the correct way to use Grab before he lost his income.
He just lost it.
The junior copywriter didn’t get a masterclass on ethical AI prompting before their role disappeared.
They just disappeared.
But the person with 20,000 followers — the one who has already extracted enough value from the old system to be comfortable — gets to define the terms of the new one.
And they call it thought leadership.
Then AI Arrived
And AI could do everything the manipulated content was already doing — faster, cheaper, at infinite scale.
The recycled framework? AI does that in seconds.
The borrowed expertise? AI has read everything.
The performative authenticity? AI can be trained to sound exactly like you.
The 30 days of scheduled posts? AI can generate 300.
And now the content creator — like the taxi driver before them — is standing in front of the technology that learned their moves and asking:
Is this fair?
The Uncomfortable Sequence
The taxi driver manipulated the meter. We celebrated when Grab removed the friction he created.
The content creator manipulated the feed. Now AI removes the friction they created.
And we’re supposed to feel differently about the second case?
The technology isn’t the issue. The behaviour that made the technology feel like relief — that’s the issue.
And the behaviour came first. Both times.
The Honest Exception
There are content creators whose work AI cannot replicate. Not because AI lacks the capability — but because the work was never about the output.
It was about the specific life that produced it.
The observation from Felda. The cassette store in Kota Tinggi. The cafe that closed. The first class cabin at 35,000 feet. The takaful research that found the instant gratification problem. The shoe rack that didn’t organise anyone.
Those aren’t frameworks. Those aren’t borrowed expertise. Those aren’t recycled insights dressed as original thinking.
Those are lives. Observed carefully. Written honestly.
AI trained on everything ever written — cannot produce what has never been written before.
The meter nobody manipulated — is the only meter technology cannot replace.
The Question Worth Sitting With
Before the next post about the correct way to use AI.
Before the next draw-the-line about authentic versus automated.
Before the next celebration or condemnation of what technology is doing to writing:
What did I do to my meter?
Not as self-punishment. As honest inventory.
Because the taxi driver who never manipulated his meter — who showed up, took every passenger, every route, every time — he lost his income too when Grab arrived.
That’s the part of the story nobody tells.
Technology doesn’t distinguish between the honest and the manipulative. It just removes the friction.
The honest ones lose too.
Which means the question was never really about AI.
It was always about what we were building — and whether it was worth building — before the technology arrived to measure it.
This is not a verdict. This is what I observed — including about myself.
Draw your own conclusions.
Clarity is the most underrated business investment.
— Lokman S., Majalah BIKIN