One of the aims of Future of Singapore website is to curate articles that are of interest to Singapore and Singaporeans.
There’s no doubt AI is going to impact the Workforce worldwide
19 May 2026
25 May 2026
From Chris Kuan
It is Singapore and it is the MSM which you can always count on to strike one for the fat-cats. Go back to first principles – what is the truth? Or better still whose truth is he stating? This brings me to Bilhari Kausikan who labelled the anti-AI protestors in the US as “Luddites”. Typically, this is terribly biased understanding of the early 19th century Neal Ludd and his gang of weavers who wanted to smash the looms. What has been whitewashed from history was that the Luddites were protesting against unjust pay and terrible work conditions. The Luddites came through in our understanding of social and economic history as being against progress but almost unknown was they were against social and economic injustice. And history also told us that the Industrial Revolution was indeed a nasty time for workers much due to bad or inactive government policies – only to be partly alleviated with the social reform movements later in that century.
With AI, we are potentially circling back to the 19th century. All anyone highflying in business and politics wanna talk abt are the great future of AI and the disruption of jobs but nobody wants to talk about what is to be done abt the latter. The FT usefully reminded that the business owners would shoot and kill the Luddites to protect their looms back in the dates – in today’s world, it would take mass killing to do the same. If there is a truth and that truth is the jobs apocalypse, the SG govie more than any government in the world has a wide Rubicon to cross given its long history of low taxes and few social protection / entitlement will made as redundant as many jobs.
Mr Kuan was referring a CNA article that went viral about the language Standard Chartered Bank CEO used to describe the retrenchment of more than 7000 jobs with AI
Mr Chris Kuan is an experienced investment banker from WestLB AG, a German Investment Bank. Mr Kuan is based out of Tokyo, Japan
From Anthea Ong:
Lately, whether she is speaking at a global conference, a leadership dialogue, with school chairpersons, CEOs, policymakers or educators, she finds herself returning to one line over and over again: “As AI becomes more human, we mustn’t become less human.”
Yet increasingly, she wonders if we fully understand what is already happening beneath the surface of our economic and social systems. Because alongside all the excitement about AI, productivity and transformation, there are also growing systemic layoffs, deep anxiety, quiet exhaustion and a strange psychological untethering many people cannot quite articulate.
We keep telling people to upskill, adapt, pivot, reinvent themselves. But what happens when the system itself increasingly requires fewer humans? If AI agents eventually perform both cognitive and physical labour at scale, what exactly are we all competing for? And if there are structurally fewer jobs, is “upskilling” becoming less about opportunity and more about humans wrestling each other for shrinking chairs?
Why do we still organise identity around employment in a world steadily engineering employment away?
Then another contradiction emerges for her. Hyper-capitalism depends on consumption to survive. But if large numbers of people no longer have stable income or meaningful economic participation, who exactly keeps the system going?
If growth destroys mental health, families and the planet, what exactly are we growing toward?
Maybe this is why the conversation about AI cannot merely be technological or economic. It must also become psychological, philosophical and relational. Because our systems are evolving faster than our understanding of what it means to be human within them.
Language is generative, not merely descriptive. And if we keep speaking about human beings primarily as economic units (say, “lower value human capital”), eventually people – and society, may begin experiencing themselves that way too.
Perhaps beneath the escalating anxiety around AI, layoffs, wars, polarisation and rising social fragmentation is a quieter existential fear many people cannot yet fully name: “If the system no longer needs me economically… why do I exist within it?” #ontological
And maybe this is precisely why she keeps returning to the same line in room after room: “As AI becomes more human, we mustn’t become less human.”
So we are making machines think like humans. Can we also double down on our own humanity too? On our capacity to live, relate, rest, care, belong, create meaning, hold nuance, experience wonder and remain deeply human beyond economic usefulness in the world we are building?
Ms Anthea Ong is former Nominated MP (Member of Parliament) from 2018 to 2020. Ms Ong is also a Social Entrepreneur and Professional Certified Coach
Singapore’s economy has grown faster than expected in the first three months of the year as furious demand for AI chips has outweighed the fallout of the US-Israel war on Iran.
Singapore’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, the Ministry of Trade and Industry said on Monday, comfortably beating an official advance estimate of 4.6 percent.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, GDP grew 1 percent from the previous quarter.
The Trade Ministry said GDP growth was driven by strong performances of the city-state’s wholesale trade, manufacturing, and finance and insurance sectors.
“In particular, robust AI-related demand led to growth in the machinery, equipment & supplies segment of the wholesale trade sector, as well as the electronics and precision engineering clusters within the manufacturing sector,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry kept its 2026 growth outlook steady at between 2 and 4 percent despite “downside risks” from rising energy and fertiliser prices amid the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to most shipping.
“These factors will weigh on global economic activity for the rest of the year,” it said.
“On the other hand, AI-related demand has remained robust and should continue to support the growth of regional economies throughout the year.”
Khoon Goh, head of Asia research for ANZ, said the GDP figures likely do not fully reflect the impact of the crisis in the Middle East.
“It will probably be more apparent in Q2, but the solid Q1 GDP sets up a strong base for the rest of 2026,” Goh told Al Jazeera.
“The AI-related investment boom is powering the manufacturing sector, and unless the Singapore economy runs out of oil, strong activity in manufacturing will continue to drive growth,” he said.
Nearly three months since the start of the war, the collapse of shipping via the Strait of Hormuz amid competing Iranian and US blockades continues to cast a shadow over the global economy.
The United Nations last week cut its 2026 growth forecast for the global economy to 2.5 percent, down from 2.7 percent, citing the fallout of the conflict.
Anthony Tay, an associate professor of economics at Singapore Management University, said Singapore’s latest GDP figures will be met “more with relief than glee” after local economists raised expectations for growth amid the AI boom.
“For the whole of 2026, the expectation among local economic forecasters is for around 3.6 percent growth, which is a brighter outlook compared with previous quarters … while acknowledging significant downside risks,” Tay told Al Jazeera.
Singapore, one of the world’s most trade-reliant economies, has played a major role in the global rollout of AI as a producer of semiconductors and semiconductor equipment.
The Southeast Asian country accounts for about 10 percent of semiconductor production and 20 percent of semiconductor chip equipment production globally.
Yeow Hwee Chua, an economics professor at Nanyang Technological University, said a key question is whether the strong growth can translate into a more broad-based expansion and “stronger household confidence.”
“The 6 percent year-on-year figure is strong, especially for a mature economy like Singapore,” Chua told Al Jazeera.
“It is certainly encouraging, although I would interpret it with some caution given Singapore’s high exposure to global demand and external conditions,” he said.
Al Jazeera is an independent News Network, funded in part by the Qatari government and is based in the Qatari capital, Doha.
It has been operating since November 1996.
Here’s another view from a popular YouTube channel,
The Blue Cats
Quick Summary:
Jobs are going to Malaysia
Jobs are going to Malaysia and regional countries
The Blue Cats is a YouTube channel belonging to Goody Feed Pte Ltd, a Media Company
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