Edited Transcript of Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan's Remarks at IBM Think ASEAN on 8 May 2018

Good morning everyone,

Singapore is Chair of ASEAN this year. Our theme for ASEAN is “Resilience” and “Innovation”. We just had an ASEAN Summit, and I just wanted to say three things:

First, we have agreed that we would form a network of smart cities across ASEAN. Initially 26 cities, but you know as well as I do that in fact ASEAN is a huge area - 630 million people; a combined GDP in excess of USD2.5 trillion - so it’s going to be a lot more than 26 cities. But, for a start, a network of cities that will exchange solutions, share mistakes, avoid those mistakes, and enhance the whole delivery of public services across ASEAN. That’s the first agreement.

The second is an ASEAN Agreement on e-Commerce. We know this is a field which is rapidly disrupting business models across ASEAN. In fact, because of the sheer diversity of ASEAN, what we want by having an agreement on e-Commerce is to lower trade barriers and enhance access to the markets; to shorten and to disintermediate the supply chain from the farmer, or the hawker, or the handicraft maker, to the consumer within the ASEAN market itself. 

The third area where we are going to work together is on cybersecurity. Because even as we go through this disruption, and even as we expand the opportunities - we hope - for individuals, you know as well as I do that it will also expand opportunities for cyber criminals, cyber-espionage and the rest of it. So this is another area where we are going to work together.

Now, let me switch hats out of diplomacy into a more fun topic - which is why you are all here. If you think about it, over the last 300 years, we went through an Industrial Revolution which replaced human labour and animal labour with machines. And that completely transformed societies, economies and even politics. We believe we are now at another inflection point. The difference now is that we live in an age where computing - in fact the price is trending to zero, and that is why IBM’s old business model is in trouble.

Second, we now live in an age of pervasive connectivity. Everyone is connected. Whether you are using WiFi, or Bluetooth, or 3G, 4G, 5G to come - everyone is on, is connected all the time. The third thing that has happened is sensors are now pervasive, and the costs of sensors are so cheap that, in fact, they are deployed and thrown away. What all this has created is a system in which there is in fact a whole tsunami of data. And that is why there is this whole new science – data science. It is no longer just a question of access to data, but the ability to gain insights from data, and the competitive advantage that that confers on your enterprise, or on your country. But there’s another further change that has occurred, which is that computers - I shouldn’t say computers, but computing systems - can now see, hear and talk. And that I believe breaches another fundamental barrier, because for much of the IT revolution, we have always assumed that human beings could hide behind that hurdle of vision, hearing and speaking. Now that hurdle has come down. The question is, what implications does that have on jobs, economies, politics, security and in fact, the way human societies are organised, mobilised - and the way we communicate with each other.

So the point I am making is that this change is real, is profound, and we need to get ahead of it. Now, there are a couple of fundamental hurdles. If I was to ask you all to put up your hands, how many of you here in this audience - who in fact should be a very ‘with it’ audience - but how many of us here really understand the mathematics behind deep learning? I don’t. If you say you do, I’m going to ask you whether you understand the mathematics of the matrices and the vectors behind the perceptron. The answer is most of us - the vast majority of us - don’t. Now, the question is, if we don’t understand the fundamental mathematics and science behind it, does that mean we can’t apply the technologies and the applications that are generated from it? If you think about modern society, most people would not understand how a TV monitor worked. Or even how radio worked. But that did not mean that TV, mass media and communications could not be used by ordinary people. So I think one fundamental challenge which today’s event represents, is that you are actually trying to democratise; to commoditise the applications of AI way beyond the tiny, select, elite group of people who truly understand the mathematics of it. So in a sense, it is ‘meta-AI’. And I don’t think we should be apologetic that the vast majority of people who use AI as we know it may not understand all the nuts and bolts and the mathematics behind it. This, in fact, is an opportunity.

A lot of the exhibits which you will see outside - I came earlier and went through them - are an attempt to break down that barrier, to open people’s eyes, and to say well, there is this new set of tools.  But what IBM can’t do for you is to tell you how to use it in your own domain. And that’s where this engagement comes in. The people who are actually in the trenches delivering services and making things better have to be exposed to this new set of tools, and then figure out how to use it to gain comparative advantage.

That relates to the next point, which is that we do need to completely retool our education and our capacity. That is why in the case of Singapore, we’ve got Minister Heng leading the Committee on the Future Economy, and we are focusing very much on SkillsFuture. Because what we learnt 10, 20, 30 years ago is probably completely out of date, and every one of us needs to go back to school, and needs to gain sufficient critical mass of knowledge so that we can use this stuff. 

The third and final point I want to make is that the old way of looking for advantage by hiding behind silos and walled gardens - I think that’s over. We have to look for open standards, open source, and interconnectivity; and learning how to share and yet gain competitive advantage. So these new models for cooperation, competition and sharing - something I think we are just feeling our way through, but we need to evolve. If we can do this, then certainly from the point-of-view of Singapore as a city state - as one of the most hyper-connected nodes in a global network, and with a hyper-educated and motivated population - that gives us a second wind for our sails in this digital revolution. And because Singapore is in the centre of Southeast Asia, we want to use this position to enable, empower and collaborate with our neighbours in ASEAN. That gives ASEAN a chance to captialise on our already significant advantages of size, of a population in which 60% are below the age of 35, of the ability in the next 20 to 30 years to invest in infrastructure - certaintly in digital infrastructure, to make ASEAN a leading region in the world. Then, by bringing down barriers, ensuring interoperability and sharing, we will achieve win-win paradigms both politically and economically. 

So let me again thank you all for being here, and I would say watch this space - a lot of things are happening.

Thank you all very much.

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