The announcement of Singapore’s revised artificial intelligence (AI) strategy by Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on Dec 4 underlines the evolution of the inaugural 2019 strategy that was aimed mostly at deploying AI in specific sectors such as healthcare, security and education. Singapore now seeks to move ahead in the global AI race by learning from recent breakthroughs in generative AI, which is defined as a type of artificial intelligence technology that can produce various kinds of content that include text, imagery, audio and synthetic data.

Mr Wong pointed out that knowledge-based work such as research, coding and writing had been considered safe from disruption in the past. That is no longer the case because of recent breakthroughs in generative AI. The advent of a technological ecosystem, which puts advanced AI tools with near-human-like intelligence in the hands of anyone who possesses an Internet connection, represents uncharted territory. The compass of the public good calls therefore for a more systematic way of harnessing AI’s benefits while protecting society from risks such as deepfakes, scams, cyber attacks and misinformation. AI’s impact on jobs and livelihoods needs to be mitigated as well.