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[Singapore, 26ain, Sefydliad Thomson Reuters]- More than 100 community centers in Singapore. If I ever decide to play badminton, I will be exhausted before I can play. This is because you are forced to enter the date and time on the website again and again until you find a place in court. But thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), this task may soon become easier.
The Singapore People’s Association, which runs community centres, worked with the government’s technology department to build a productive AI chatbot to help people search for available courts. All four of Singapore’s official languages are available.
The soon-to-be-available “order chatbot” is a product of the “AI Trailblazer” project. The project was launched last year with the aim of creating AI-based solutions to everyday problems.
With support from Singapore government agencies and Google, the AI Trailblazer has led to the development of tools to check resumes of job seekers, create customized educational curricula, and create call logs for customer service centers.
Information and Communications Minister Josephine Teo says the project is part of Singapore’s AI strategy, which focuses on “AI for all” rather than regulation.
“Regulation is essential for good governance, but when it comes to AI, we need to ensure there is a robust approach to support activities,” Information and Communications Minister Teo said last month at Google’s offices in Singapore, where a number of new equipment is displaced. We need to set up a suitable infrastructure.”
“Another very important aspect is capacity building,” he said, “not only to get people to use these tools, but to give them the opportunity to develop their skills to be able to use artificial intelligence tools well.”.
As the use of productive AI explodes around the world, governments are scrambling to harness AI from spreading distortion to deep rigging in elections, without sacrificing innovation or potential economic benefits. The goal is to prevent the negative effects of its use.
Denise Wong, deputy assistant director-general of the Infocom and Media Development Authority (IMDA), which oversees Singapore’s digital strategy, said it would focus on bringing AI to the public sector and industry and creating an environment that support research, skills and collaboration. He said there was.
“Regulation is not the main focus. We believe that a trusted ecosystem is essential for people to use AI with confidence,” Wong told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“This means we need an ecosystem that is easy for businesses to use, has room for innovation, and allows them to use AI in a safe and responsible manner. That ultimately builds trust.”
With its stable business environment, Singapore has consistently ranked near the top of global indices for technological innovation, and last year rose to fifth in the world in terms of institutions, human resources and infrastructure.
It is also ahead of the curve in AI adoption, publishing the first national AI strategy in 2019, setting the goal for individuals, businesses and communities to use AI “with confidence, good judgment, and trust.” I picked him up.
Last year, we started experimenting with generative AI tools in the courts. Productive AI is also used in schools and government agencies, and in December last year it announced a second national AI strategy, with the goal of “AI serving the public good in Singapore and the world.”
Last year, the company also established an AI Verification Institute to develop a productive AI sandbox (an experimental environment isolated from the outside world) that serves as a testing ground for product verification and testing tools for responsible use. IMDA is a core member of the organization, along with IT companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Google, and Salesforce.
Wong revealed that the toolkit will be hosted on the code-sharing platform GitHub, and dozens of domestic and international companies have expressed interest.
“This toolkit will allow users to conduct tests based on the parameters that are important to them, such as gender expression and cultural representation, leading to desirable results,” he continued.
According to IMDA, tests carried out with the toolkit by tech giant Huawei revealed racial bias in the data, and tests by UBS revealed that some attributes in the data were not consistent with the model’s fairness. This led to a warning that it could have an effect on people.
“We want everyone to be able to use AI responsibly, but governments alone can’t do that,” Wong said.
According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 169 countries around the world have developed more than 1,600 AI policies and strategies.
Simon Chesterman, senior director of AI Singapore, the mainstay of the Singapore government’s program, said that while the United States has chosen a market-based model with little regulation, Europe has chosen a human rights-focused approach. prioritizes sovereignty and national security.
But Singapore has chosen a different path.
“In a country as small as Singapore, the challenge is how to avoid under-regulation and over-regulation. We cannot put our citizens at risk, and we cannot afford to lose opportunities by transferring innovation to other countries.” Chesterman said.
Mr Chesterman said, “In addition to this idea of Goldilocks regulation (optimal temperature), we are really enthusiastic about working with industry standards. Industry and options are always important at the forefront of preventing problems with AI .”Because he is coming.”
This month, the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) released guidelines on governance and ethics related to AI. It espouses principles such as transparency, fairness, equity, accountability, integrity, and “human centeredness.”
However, ASEAN member states such as Singapore, Cambodia and Myanmar have been criticized for using AI to strengthen surveillance through facial recognition, mass behavior analysis systems and security robots.
According to Information and Communications Minister Teo, the second batch of AI Trailblazers will start in Singapore this year. We will provide support to up to 150 startups to build productive AI solutions to solve everyday problems.
Ausma Barnot, a researcher at Australia’s Griffith University, warns that although this collaboration between industry, academia and government accelerates technological progress, there are also risks involved.
“There is a risk that we will become over-dependent on these companies in the medium to long term,” said Barnot. “The challenge is to strike a balance between partnerships and national sovereign control over critical AI infrastructure.”
At the “AI Trailblazer” event, a short film about Cymdeithas y Popl’s booking chatbot was shown, causing a buzz of excitement.
Reservations for badminton courts exceeded 140,000 in 2022. Wen Wangyi, director of the National AI Bureau, said any tool that would make such bookings easier would be welcome.
(Translation: Airkreren)
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