Transcript of Minister Josephine Teo’s Response at the AI for Good Global Summit: Scaling AI for Good – Introducing the New Global Commission at Geneva, Switzerland

Doreen Bogdan-Martin

Moderator & Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union (ITU): Let’s get started. Minister Teo, I want to start with you. At the Global Dialogue yesterday, you compared making AI a force for good to the “patient work of tending a garden, sowing seeds before the flowers bloom”.

That’s a beautiful metaphor!  If the Commission wants to build a community of AI Gardeners growing our collective capacity for innovative yet safe AI ecosystems, what can we learn from Singapore’s example?

Minister Josephine Teo: Thank you, Doreen. Let me first congratulate the Co-Chairs, President Kagame and Mr Marc Benioff, and you, for putting together this remarkable group of people as part of the Commission. This itself is an achievement.

Regarding the metaphor - years ago, Singapore set out to be a garden city.  Today, we think of ourselves as a city in a garden. It’s not just the aesthetics, but the value of natural cooling in a very hot, humid, and densely built-up place. It is the value of being liveable for everyone. Achieving it took time – a lot of careful planning and operational excellence. We also had many partners.

There are similarities with how we are approaching AI. For example, many of our industry partners leaned forward to help our people learn to use AI tools. Today, if you look at the active users of the top Generative AI applications, Singapore probably features amongst the highest on a per capita basis.  This is good at the individual level, but our bigger challenge is, how do we get AI to bring value at the enterprise level, industry level and national level?

We have identified National AI Missions in four sectors – Advanced Manufacturing, Healthcare, Finance, and Connectivity – which together contribute 40% to our GDP.  We need partners too, to solve some of our biggest challenges, such as doubling or tripling our aircraft handling capacity or making precision medicine a reality.

The more that we deploy AI, the more we need to care that it is also being done in a way that is responsible. We need to build trust in the way that AI is used. Here, again, we need partners to manage AI risks and protect our critical systems.

From how we are looking at it, the Commission is well placed to build meaningful partnerships at global scale that will help more countries, like Singapore, turn AI ambition into AI adoption, and that will be something of lasting value.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin

Moderator & Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union (ITU): What would you like to see from this Commission?

Minister Josephine Teo: I think the Commission can do things that individual countries on our own will find very difficult to do.

I would say there are around three things. One is that the ability to use AI for good, is a matter of sharing experiences and knowing how others have done it. Secondly, I think we all desire a level of

autonomy to make smart choices about who we partner with, who we buy from, what we buy, and on what terms. I think some guidance on what can be achieved on those fronts, would always be very practical and very welcome. Third, I think we are all trying to build anchors in our societies that give us breadth, depth, and resilience in the use of AI, so that it is sustainable. How do you do that? And are individual projects going to be enough? Clearly not. So, what gives us enduring value? This is something that we all need to figure out a way to do.