Tharman Shanmugaratnan, the newly appointed president of the city-state, spoke at this week’s Singapore FinTech Festival, noting that artificial intelligence will help it meet the challenges of a limited talent pool.

Similar to other major technological advancements, artificial intelligence is expected to cause widespread disruption, including in the labor market. And not all will be winners in this regard, according to Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam. 

Developing economies with surplus talent will be hit in areas like business process outsourcing or the export of ICT (information and communication technology) services. In contrast, more mature economies could benefit from the changes. 

«It's good for countries like Singapore because we are short of people,» said Shanmugaratnam at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2023, which is being held this week from November 15 to 17. «[W]e don't have many of our programmers.»

Cognitive Skills

Even within Singapore, some will be affected with likely displacement of certain jobs, particularly those with rote tasks that can be easily automated. On the other hand, other workers will be enabled by new AI-related tools or provide added value via higher cognitive skills.

«It's a collective task and we need to think of ourselves as a social organisation to address this,» Shanmugaratnam added.