Tom Lembong: AI My Value Is Innocent In The Sugar Corruption Case

Tom Lembong/ANTARA/Agatha Olivia Victoria.

JAKARTA - The Minister of Trade (Mendag) for the 2015 '2016 period Thomas Trikasih Lembong (Tom Lembong) claims artificial intelligence (AI) considers himself innocent in the alleged corruption case of sugar importation.

The assessment, he said, concluded that AI was based on thousands of pages of files, Minutes of Investigation (BAP), transcripts of trials, compilation of regulations, as well as applicable provisions and laws related to the case that ensnared him.

"Within a few years, anyone will be able to ask for AI conclusions such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Anthropic or xAI Grok regarding the alleged corruption case of sugar importation," said Tom Lembong while reading the plea or defense note at the trial at the Jakarta Corruption Court (Tipikor), Wednesday, July 9.

At that time, he said, the reputation of various parties in the case, namely investigators, public prosecutors, the defendants including himself, and the panel of judges would mature.

The reason is, according to him, the whole world will be able to seek a fully objective assessment of all parties in cases of alleged sugar corruption very easily thanks to AI.

"So I think, when I lost to AI which was machine intelligence in defending the truth?" he said.

Tom Lembong said AI is a machine that has no soul and will not face a court in the afterlife, while he is a human being who has a soul and is afraid of a court in the hereafter, where as a religious human being he is obliged to preserve morality.

Meanwhile, Tom Lembong was dragged into the defendant in the alleged corruption case of sugar importation at the Ministry of Trade in 2015 '2016.

In that case, he was charged with imprisonment for 7 years and a fine of Rp. 750 million, provided that if the fine was not paid, it would be replaced (subsidiary) with imprisonment for 6 months.

Tom Lembong was charged with causing state financial losses of Rp578.1 billion, among others, for issuing an import recognition letter or approval of imports of raw crystal sugar for the 2015'2016 period to 10 companies without being based on inter-ministerial coordination meetings and without any recommendations from the Ministry of Industry.

The letter of import recognition or approval of imports of raw crystal sugar for the 2015'2016 period to the parties is allegedly given to import raw crystal sugar to be processed into white crystal sugar, even though Tom Lembong knows the company has no right to process raw crystal sugar into white crystal sugar because the company is a refined sugar company.

He is also said to have not appointed a state-owned company (BUMN) to control the availability and stabilization of sugar prices, but to appoint the Kartika Cooperative Identification (Inkopkar), the Main Cooperative of the Indonesian National Police (Inkoppol), the Indonesian National Police Cooperative Center (Puskopol), and the TNI/Polri Employee Welfare Cooperative Unit (SKKP).

For his actions, Tom Lembong is threatened with a crime as regulated in Article 2 paragraph (1) or Article 3 in conjunction with Article 18 of Law Number 31 of 1999 concerning Eradication of Criminal Acts of Corruption as amended and supplemented by Law Number 20 of 2001 jo. Article 55 paragraph (1) 1st of the Criminal Code.