SINGAPORE: President Tharman Shanmugaratnam spoke at the eighth edition of the Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF) on Wednesday (Nov 15), which is focused on the “Promise and Pitfalls” of Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the theme “AI for good. AI for good?”
The President sounded optimistic about the technology, even as he acknowledged the disruption it can bring. He said that Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, are likely to take over jobs in the financial services sector faster than technologies in the past. However, he also noted that the shift in the traditional hierarchy of jobs would be a “positive” one.
“There is no intrinsic reason why it cannot happen. I don’t think this is going to happen suddenly, but I think it’s going to happen progressively. And I think it will happen for certain human tasks much faster than previous technologies have done,” he said at a fireside chat at the festival.
“What you regard as a better job and a job that deserves better pay might shift considerably in the years to come. The way we value IQ over EQ might change,” added the President.
In Singapore, where there is at times a lack of people with certain skills such as programming, automating these jobs would be to the county’s advantage because it would decrease the reliance on talent from outside its shores, as well as use the technology to allow the workforce to “be more productive and enjoy their jobs a lot more”.
Several roles need intelligence quotient or IQ, which can be replaced by LLMs and AI, which can perform better and more efficiently than people. President Tharman said that the jobs that people place a lot of value on must be rethought, like jobs that “require teamwork, the jobs that require collective imagination (and) the care jobs, and we’ll have to value them accordingly.”
And though AI provides great advantages, he underlined that some sectors still need human judgement and decision-making. For financial services, while AI may dispense customized financial advice speedily, human intervention and ethical rules are still necessary to make sure that the best advice is given to people.
SFF 2023 is scheduled this week from Nov 14 to 17. The main speakers at the conference, aside from Singapore President Tharman, are the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Ms Kristalina Georgieva, and World Bank President Mr Ajay Banga.
The event was organised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Elevandi and Constellar, along with The Association of Banks in Singapore. Registration for SFF 2023 and more details about the festival are found at www.fintechfestival.sg.
Read also: ‘Promise and Pitfalls of AI’ in focus at Singapore FinTech Festival 2023 /TISG