More than just hype, AI to change nature of jobs: panellists

Artificial intelligence (AI) is redefining the way businesses operate by automating everyday tasks.

For those who have experienced the wonders of ChatGPT, Midjourney and the likes, which can generate text or images almost instantly, the first question that springs to mind is: “Will AI take my job?”

Addressing this concern, speakers at The Business Times Leaders Breakfast presented by CapitaLand remained optimistic.

“Throughout history, technological transformations have led to some job reductions, but ultimately, more jobs have been created. The same will happen with AI,” said Wong Hwee Lim, head of CapitaLand Investment’s digital international department, during the panel discussion on 16 May. The session was moderated by The Business Times deputy news editor Anita Gabriel.

While the imperative in adopting AI seems to be the reduction in headcount costs – a significant expense for any business – Leslie Teo, senior director for AI products at AI Singapore, explained: “Cost-saving in itself is not the aim, but generating more revenue.”
 

Dr Teo gave the example of radiologists. Seeing the advancements in deep learning algorithms that could read X-rays, prominent AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton in 2016 predicted the demise of radiologists, famously declaring that “within five years deep learning is going to do better than radiologists”.

Yet, radiologists remain relevant today, with many leveraging AI to perform their jobs better.

Agreeing, Victor Liang, head of data science for geo services at Grab, said: “We use AI technology to augment human effort rather than replace it.”

While humans remain relevant in the workforce, a word of caution is that there will be some displacements during transition periods.

Dr Teo said: “During the Industrial Revolution, it took almost a generation for the people who lost jobs to machines to have their income get back to where it was… This is where we have to take care of our society.”

Singapore’s position in the AI race is to take some of the best models, localise them or regionalise them, or adopt them for specific domains such as finance and real estate, he added.
 

Not just hype

The three panellists agreed that AI is not just hype, despite the emerging applications and practical uses not yet commensurating with the hefty investments in the space.

The discrepancy could be due to the complexity of integrating AI into existing products, pointed out Grab’s Liang.

“It takes time to find the product and market fit, and it also takes time to build the capability infrastructure needed for implementation,” he said.

CapitaLand’s Wong added: “The hype is primarily because the Wall Street crowd comes in and pushes share prices up. When we look at the innovation that is happening, we do see progress with new products coming in and costs trending down.”

Dr Teo suggested that the slower-than-expected emergence of AI applications could be due to the challenge of figuring out how to monetise the new technology.

“It’s instructive to remember that the Internet giants today, including Google and Meta, who profit through digital advertising, were not predicted to be the ones making money at the dawn of the Internet age,” he noted, adding that it took many years for Internet companies to realise a profit model.

He is, however, optimistic that finding the path to profitability will be much faster this time.
 

Challenges remain

On the level of individual businesses, implementing AI often faces the challenges of awareness.

“People will not be happy for you to roll out AI solutions if you have set the tone that AI is going to take their jobs,” Dr Teo quipped.

Another hurdle is ensuring the adherence to responsible AI usage.

Wong noted the organisation’s duty to its stakeholders and customers. “Whatever tools that we put out there, we need to make sure that it meets all the guidelines that we have for ourselves and our stakeholders,” he said.

This complexity makes pushing out AI solutions especially challenging for multinational entities, “with different regulations popping up in the different countries”, he added.
 

The business case to invest

Regardless of the obstacles, panellists highlighted AI to be a force that cannot be ignored. Wong said: “AI is a transformational technology that could disrupt business and transform various industries.”

Dr Teo explained: “Harnessing the AI is important to Singapore as a big part of our economy is providing business services to the region, including legal and accountancy.” Singapore risks being disintermediated if such services are replaced by AI.

In his keynote address preceding the panel discussion, Dr Teo highlighted that adopting AI in today’s world does not require hiring expensive experts or building custom systems from scratch, as companies can leverage existing resources and cloud AI platforms offered by tech giants.

The availability of resources makes AI an especially compelling area of investment. As Dr Teo put it succinctly: “In business terms, the payoff can be huge, but the price of implementing AI is nearly zero.”

He added that the real key to success is adopting an experimentation mindset: start with pilots, analyse results and iterate using an agile approach to identify high-impact AI use cases.

“You don’t need to write big cheques. But you need a lot of guts. You need to have a clear view,” he said.
 

Source: The Business Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.