In a national broadcast, Minister for Trade and Industry Mr Chan Chun Sing shared about creating jobs to tide citizens over the pandemic crisis. He highlighted two efforts — digitalisation and internationalisation.
History has witnessed how Singapore upskilled its workforce through computerisation and automation in the 1980s, as Mr Chan mentioned in his speech. Now, there are also Digital Ambassador Corps deployed to help small businesses and senior citizens learn and apply technology.
With every change comes resistance. In the push for a Smart Nation, the resistance may come from a fear of the unknown. Reports of artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital technologies cannibalising jobs do not help either.
However, Singapore is in a unique situation. With a small and aging workforce, Singapore has to tap on AI and automation to increase its competitive advantage over other economies.
Digital technologies and AI (including machine learning, computer vision and natural language processing) can boost efficiencies, performance and productivity in various ways. It helps e-commerce retailers like Lazada sell more products by analysing massive amount of data, learning customer preferences and providing targeted products to be displayed online for the customers.
In engineering and aviation, AI has been used to increase the performance of gas turbine engines, such as finding an optimal way to increase thrust and decrease fuel consumptions. Such performance improvements cannot usually be attained using traditional models.
In logistics in Singapore and around the world, AI has been utilized to predict traffic patterns and route conditions. For companies like Grab, the use of AI has enabled drivers to complete as many jobs as possible between their current locations and their homes. Grab also uses natural language processing methods to address customer feedback and enable users to find the services they need with greater ease. AI is also extensively used in the development of autonomous vehicles like the National University of Singapore (NUS) autonomous shuttle at its Kent Ridge campus.
In healthcare, AI has been extensively used to optimise hospital management and processes like managing a large number of patient beds in the case of Tan Tock Seng Hospital. AI is going to be an integral part of Singapore’s healthcare system to help doctors make better decisions and design early intervention programmes and improved care pathways for patients using predictive modelling.
In educational applications and tools, AI has helped the development of skills and testing systems and allows the adjustment of learning based on differentiating students’ needs in Singapore.
In areas where AI and digital technologies improve businesses significantly, the nature of jobs has changed. Certain jobs like routine clerical work may be reduced while the employment rates for professionals and those in the service sectors have increased. It is therefore important to understand what tasks AI is suited (or not suited) for. It is also best to focus our learning, retraining and upskilling in Singapore to take full advantage of the AI era.
Prior research has shown that AI is suited to perform tasks that provide clear feedback with definable goals and metrics. AI is also efficient at recognising associations based on empirical and statistical data. On the other hand, AI is not so good at unstructured tasks and reasoning, especially based on background information that is previously unknown to the computer. This is why AI (or machine learning) can be used to spot irregular heartbeat from scans and detect diseases from medical imaging, but it cannot explain as well as doctors how and why you are diagnosed with a certain disease. In other words, the interpretation of the causes and severity of these diseases and their linkages to other diseases are much more difficult for AI to ascertain. AI also does not perform well when the tasks to be learned change quickly. Humans do much better at interpreting data and drawing inferences even when the tasks evolve over time.
In light of the above understanding, how we should we adjust, retrain or upskill the valuable human resource we have in Singapore to prepare for the new paradigm involving AI and digital technologies?
We understand that in most jobs, there are many interrelated tasks. AI excels in tasks that are repetitive with definable goals and metrics, and in picking up associations and recognising patterns from statistical correlations. So the jobs that AI could likely replace include telemarketing, receptionists, computer support specialists (think chatbots) and market research analysts.
However, AI is weak on relatively unstructured, creative tasks and those involving emotional intelligence. So the focus of the training or upskilling should be on these areas.
For example, upskilling courses can cover developing strategies in branding, designing and marketing. Use AI to gather your data, but use humans to develop business, marketing and innovation strategies based on understanding those data.
People and leadership skills will continue to be important, yet another area that AI currently does not fill the void. The expertise in asking interesting questions and looking for new solutions, which is required in researchers or entrepreneurs, will also be deemed more valuable.
The age of AI and digital technologies is already here. It is clear that they can (and probably should) be applied to different industries and have the potential to significantly improve productivity. In the process, they will transform our work and lives. While some jobs may be replaced, many other job and career opportunities will be created.
Singapore has the infrastructure, talents and resources to take advantage of the benefits brought about by the AI revolution. With national emphasis on innovation and Industry 4.0, as well as additional resources and retraining/upskilling opportunities, this could yet be another pivotal point for Singapore to create and deliver value in the competitive global arena.