Artificial Intelligence with a focus on Singapore

By cryotosensei | diaperfinancingfund | 31 May 2023

Given that Artificial Intelligence is so prevalent these days, I should spend some time reading up on this topic so that I can highlight pertinent trends to my students. So these are my research notes on Artificial Intelligence. Maybe you will find them engaging.

The "future of work", according to McKinsey, refers to perspectives essential for businesses to know and prepare for, which are centered on changes in the workplace driven by emerging technologies and other trends.
Generative AI uses vast quantities of data to assemble large language models that can help create text or images following a prompt
Amazon.com plans to bring ChatGPT-style product search to its Web store, weaving generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) into its search engine. The search becomes an interactive conversational experience that is designed to help users find answers to questions, compare products and receive personalised suggestions.
Singapore anticipates a demand in personnel who are equipped with artificial intelligence and data analytics (Aida) skills. It launched the Aida Talent Development Programme, in which the Monetary Authority of Singapore would work closely with financial institutions, training providers and Institutes of Higher Learning to increase the supply of Aida talent.
The rise of AI tools has increased the demand for people with natural language skills, and not just mathematics and coding. These skills fall under prompt engineering - the ability to direct generate AI apps to perform specific tasks using English and other human languages.
AISingapore (AISG), a national AI programme launched by the National Research Foundation, expands the job scope of existing engineers to focus on developing language skills. They need to understand large language models and can use them to solve problems creatively. Only then can they train AI programs to learn the cultural differences in the region as part of AISG's goal to create more inclusive AI.
AI Seer, an AI start-up developing a chatbot and other AI tools to facilitate mock interviews, has its engineers analyse the bots' transcripts and create goals for the AI, such as asking better questions to test interviewees.
Japanese beauty brand Shiseido seeks to integrate beauty with technology such as data, AI and web 3.0 to better serve the changing behaviour of digitally savvy beauty consumers looking for a seamless, personalised and omnichannel experience. Advancements in computing power, Internet connectivity, cloud computing and AI allowed it to move the technology from department store counters right into customers' smartphones.
Companies have already begun using AI to build smart vending machines to provide more personalised and interactive features for customers. Vending machines could thus get smarter and better - greeting you by name, answering questions about products in the machine, customising your order, suggesting complementary products.
How AI is changing creativity: A company called Tasarit launched the world's first AI-designed fragrance. The text-to-image platform Midjourney created the product images, while a writing bot called Rytr came up with the branding, the names for the scents and the product descriptions.
Security companies are tapping 3D-mapping and AI to create digital twins of facilities. This enables security personnel to work out of a command centre to monitor a building using a combination of its digital twin and live footage from cameras and sensors inside the facility. The AI tool processes the data and sends out alerts about crowd size as well as security issues such as intrusions and weapon detection. Personnel then zoom in to go inside the facility by tapping cameras at the building. This technology is developed by Singapore-based Vizzio Technologies.
A human player (American Kellin Pelrine) has comprehensively defeated a top-ranked AI system at the board game Go. This shows that AI systems can "understand" only specific situations they have been exposed to in the past and are unable to generalise in a way that humans find easy.
4 steps to using ChatGPT well: First, give the bot a persona as doing so helps it predict the next word in a given string of text. Secondly, use specific verbs so that the bot can understand the results you want. You should also determine how long you want the response to be as well as the tone to adopt, be it casual or formal. Thirdly, spilt up the instructions and ask the bot to elaborate on each of them before getting it to put them all together. You can also rephrase your questions to prompt the bot if you feel that it isn't giving you the answers you want. Last but not least, talk to the bot like you are speaking to a person. Start by asking it what it knows about a certain topic so that it lays out the information it has before requesting it to perform a task. This will help it build contextual knowledge to further explore as the conversation develops.