Vice Provost & Dean @NUSingapore/@NUSCollege; @NUS_Law; Director @AISingapore | AI & data | international law | occasional fiction | the odd New Yorker cartoon
I’m thrilled that my first work of general fiction, “Artifice”, is at last available worldwide! Skip the thread and order the book here: https://t.co/ZG2FZAIGbg
Or read on! #Artifice
Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical, 𝘔𝘢𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘢 𝘏𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘴, argues that artificial intelligence must serve humanity, not the other way around. Two groups now pore over its contents and implications.
One is a mostly male, intensely hierarchical community built around revealed truth, specialised vocabularies, ritualised gatherings, and the promise that the faithful may one day transcend death.
The other is Catholic.
That would be a real challenge for small and middle powers, where there is a strong desire to be at the table – rather than on the menu (H/T PM Mark Carney & Prof S Jayakumar).
Yoshua’s answer was to learn more and to feel more – to embrace curiosity and not give up on the search for expertise, but also to develop our human qualities of connection and communication. No boos to that.
from a public that is growing increasingly sceptical of AI (though less so in Singapore and China than the US and Europe).
A fascinating development is the possibility that national security starts to limit access to the most powerful models.
We’ve seen the rise and fall of export controls on chips, but on models themselves this first came up in respect of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview as a cybersecurity concern.
Successful responses need to show that responsible AI, governance, etc., operate not as stop signs but as seat belts – keeping us safe even as they enable us to drive faster. And it requires tangible benefits – and mitigation of harms –
The key challenge is how to bring about change. It’s not always clear that fear is the best motivator; many engineers warn that AI will displace or destroy us all, then get back to work.
A highlight was my chat with Yoshua Bengio on how concentrations of power risk encouraging our worst impulses in the development and deployment of AI – leading in turn to models that are duplicitous and manipulative (as they learned from the best: us).
As always, an energizing and enriching week at ATx! Presentations and conversations ranged from opportunities in healthcare to aviation, from scientific discovery to public services – with a heavy dose of governance, which was front and centre in Minister Josephine Teo’s keynote.