The AlumNUS
The AlumNUS

1 Mar 2024

Seeing Eye to Eye with AI: The Key to Coping with Change

Adapt to — and don’t fight — generative AI. That was the message experts had for audiences of a recent talk organised by the NUS Office of Alumni Relations. 

In-person panellists Mr Laurence Liew (left) and Mr Wong Yong Jie were joined virtually by Mr Richard Koh for the session.

The march of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been hard to ignore, with McKinsey dubbing the past year as a breakout period for the nascent technology. Equally apparent is the impact of generative AI on productivity and fears of its toll on job security. To give alumni a nuanced and practical take on these trends, the NUS Office of Alumni Relations recently rallied three alumni who are well-versed in the topic to share their views and experiences with AI. 

Each brought a unique perspective to the discussion: veteran AI enthusiast Mr Laurence Liew (Engineering '93), Director (AI Innovation), AI Singapore, shared his observations for the potential of AI, while tech leader Mr Richard Koh (Computing '94), who is Chief Technology Officer (ASEAN, Global Partner Solutions) at Microsoft, lent his perspective on how individuals could use big tech solutions. Finally, to reveal how AI was influencing HR trends, the panel included Mr Wong Yong Jie (Computing ’15), Co-Founder and Chief Software Architect of online job recruitment platform Glints.

Unlike flash-in-the-pan tech trends like the metaverse, the trio agreed that generative AI was here to stay. People had to learn to live and work with the technology instead of brushing it off as a passing trend.

Mr Chong and Ms Peh were among the alumni attendees who could identify with the points raised during the discussion.
This was a message that resonated with alumni who attended the talk, including Ms Peh Kai Wen (Arts and Social Sciences ’20), who works in financial planning. “I often encounter manual processes at work and there was a time when we were OK with just living with it,” she shared. “But I think today’s session has inspired me to think about how we can use the myriad of AI tools at our disposal to rethink and reform these processes, so that we work more efficiently."

Her friend Mr Zovin Chong (Engineering ’18), who works in tech consulting, found the session useful in demystifying the much-talked about technology. 

GET AI-READY

Mr Koh returned time and again to the analogy of a growth mindset and urged the audience to take charge of their learning of new technologies, given that learning can be done easily at our fingertips these days due to the Internet and various technologies, unlike in the past where it was less readily available. He said, “People can literally learn about generative AI anytime, anywhere. They just need to have the growth mindset and curiosity to want to learn about it.”

The panellists agreed that people didn’t need to adopt an academic approach to generative AI; they could just try some of the technologies out there to understand how it works and find potential use cases in everyday life. 

AI TECH YOU CAN TRY

Ready to dip your toes into generative AI? The most obvious tool to try is ChatGPT, which you can use to plan a family vacation, outline a 10-step skincare routine or prepare for a festive dinner party. Simply type in a prompt and refine as necessary. It helps to be as detailed as possible; for example, if the tone of the output is not right, you can say “Tweak the tone to be more formal”. Do note that ChatGPT tends to hallucinate or make up facts, so it is essential to fact-check any information it gives you. 

DID YOU KNOW? As of November 22, 2023, there are almost 10,000 AI tools available.

LOOK OUT FOR: 

Copilot: Copilot, which will be available as part of Microsoft 365 in Singapore soon, is integrated into Microsoft 365 and works alongside familiar tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and more. Simply key in natural language commands like “Tell my boss what we worked on this morning,” and it will generate a status update based on the morning’s meetings, emails and chat threads. 

Google: The Search Generative Experience, which will be rolled out around the world soon, will allow users to ask Google to draw a specific image in the search bar, no matter how kooky or whimsical. For example, “Draw an image of a dragon snaking around Marina Bay Sands” and hit “Generate”. A few seconds later, you’ll have AI-drawn art depicting your vision. 

OpenAI: Sora released by OpenAI will allow people to create videos by simply typing in a prompt. It is still being tested.

IMPACT ALL AROUND

Mr Liew suggested that adopting a growth mindset toward AI could reduce Singapore’s reliance on outsourcing – for instance, to lower-cost programmers from other countries to generate complex code - and spark a new chapter in Singapore’s growth. “I think we can expect to see this trend take place over the next three to five years and that’s one way of championing job security: by making sure we are the masters of generative AI, and not the other way around.”

You also have new roles that pop up because of AI’s augmentation into present jobs. Just this week we saw a job ad posted for a 'GPT Marketing Copywriter'. Mr Wong Yong Jie

Mastering generative AI can also open up new career pathways, shared Mr Wong, who has seen an uptick in hiring for roles specific to generative AI such as prompt engineers and AI engineers. He said, “You also have new roles that pop up because of AI’s augmentation into present jobs. Just this week we saw a job ad posted for a ‘GPT Marketing Copywriter’; essentially, the candidate had to show proficiency in using tools like ChatGPT to produce effective copy and we may see more of such roles in the future.”

Audience members were treated to candid and engaging insights on our evolving relationship with AI, as shared by the panellists.

MAN VS MACHINE

The panellists addressed wider concerns about how AI could potentially erode the unique qualities that set humans apart from machines. Mr Wong does not believe that AI can replace the fundamental qualities of humans, including their ability to communicate and empathise in industries like social work and recruitment.
He said, “We can’t ignore the optimisations that AI can bring; for example we’ve been able to use AI to cut down the average hiring time from 60 to 30 days. But that hasn’t taken away the human experience; people still fundamentally deal with other people — and I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon.” 

Mr Liew added that a lot of professionals will find that jobs are not going to be automated away. “With tools like Gen AI, Copilot, we'll find that they will be using these tools in their daily lives and take the drudgery out of work. That’s the potential we should look out for.”
 

With tools like Gen AI, Copilot, we'll find that they will be using these tools in their daily lives and take the drudgery out of work. Mr Laurence Liew

Text by Keenan Pereira. Photos by Lionel Lin.
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