Welcome Address by MOS Jasmin Lau at AI for Good Festival

Mr Koo Sengmeng, Director, AI Singapore,

Ms Jeanne Liew, Principal, Republic Polytechnic,

Industry partners,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Students

1. A very good morning to all of you.

2. Many of you have been to many conferences and seminars about AI. It's already July, and you can probably count the number of such events you have gone to. There's a little bit of fatigue. There's a little bit of repetition of what you see at these events. But I want to share with you where we are now with my own personal thoughts.

3. Mr Joshua Lee (Corporate Vice President of Frontend Manufacturing and Singapore Country Manager, Micron) spoke about three Ps just now: people, possibilities, and progress.

4. On the People side, when we first came out and talked a lot about AI, when many of you here organised your first conferences and seminars, there's a lot of interest, very deep interest, strong interest from students, from workers. But I think we are now reaching a stage where the next group of people we have to engage, are actually more difficult to reach.

5. We now have elderly in the community who perhaps think maybe technology is not for them. We also have people who think they can use AI to buy stocks or make money, and actually, we are a bit worried about them.

6. Now we are reaching groups of people where the messages that we send out have to be a lot more carefully nuanced. We have to be able to talk to them where they are, in their own language to explain what AI is all about. That is a group of people that we really have to reach out to.

7. At a festival like AI for Good, it's not just about talking to students who have already embraced the technology, but perhaps students who have not, students who are a bit afraid of what AI could do to the economy and to their jobs, and also maybe to the parents and the grandparents of the students who have similar fears and anxieties.

8. The second P, Possibilities – I think we are at a stage where if we work in certain industries and companies – Amazon, Micron, big tech, even in government – we can see the possibilities. We can see some of the new jobs. We can see some of the economic growth coming out of AI. But not everybody else in Singapore can see it. How do we present it now to students across our educational institutions? How do we present it to workers who currently feel anxious? How do we describe the possibilities in a way where overall, our people still have hope and optimism for what is to come. That is hugely important.

9. The clouds around the possibilities will start to dissipate. I imagine over the next few months there will be new actual job roles that we can describe. Job descriptions (JDs) that we can put out that help people understand what these new jobs are. But at this moment, I can understand a lot of people feel anxious, because it's grey, blur, and not everyone feels that the future is one of hope and possibility for them.

10. But it will come. Give us some patience. The Government is also working very, very hard to put together our AI missions, to ensure that across our strong growth sectors, we continue to have the jobs for our local Singaporeans.

11. Now, the last point about Progress – progress is something easy for a few, but difficult to achieve for everybody together. This is the part that, whether you're a student, industry leader, or working in government, all of you have a role to play.

12. Is it good that we have students who are already making their 60^th agent doing their work for them? Yes. In a way, great. We love to see that kind of progress.

13. We often talk about these in our speeches – we name a person, name a company, and we say great job. But my bigger worry is: is our society going to progress all together, down to someone who is lower income, perhaps visually impaired, hearing impaired, doesn't speak English as well as the rest of us? Are we sure that him or her will progress with the rest of us in this AI-driven future?

14. That's what all of us need to aspire towards, to contribute towards. I encourage all of you to think: how can technology be used for good? What is your version of good? What is your version of progress? And how do you think you want to use AI to help everyone in Singapore progress?

15. I think we wouldn't have achieved success if at the end of the day, we have five unicorns created in Singapore building AI products, and we have students who are graduating top of the cohorts who are great in AI. We would not have achieved success if the ones behind are not able to catch up.

16. So, I want to leave you with those thoughts. If you are a student thinking about what's your next digital product you want to develop, thinking about the roles that you want to go into in your career, I encourage you to think what good means, and what contributing to society's progress means. If you're an industry partner or an educator here, I also encourage you to think what you can do from your own role to help Singapore overall progress all together.

17. I'm in the business of helping Singapore and Singaporeans progress together, and I hope all of you will join me. Today is the first start. Today, we are doing the AI for Good Festival here. Today is the first start to spark all of your thoughts.

18. But if you have any further thoughts after this, and you want to ask more about how the government is also developing AI for good, please come approach me, talk to me, and I hope you're able to continue this conversation for many months to come.

19. Thank you very much.