Transcription
Everything was just so sudden, not even a warning.
Internally, you could notice that there were certain workflows that were moving from a human-led process to a more algorithm-led one. The writing was on the wall.
I was about to go home [music] at uh that day and then I got an email suddenly saying like your position is impacted due to the reorganiz reorganization. I couldn't help feeling uh shock and stressed and also like didn't really know [music] what should I do next.
It was very intense sadness. I don't think I'll ever forget that moment.
My boss did not explicitly say that your role is redundant. It's going to we're going to take over by AI, but I knew we were moving in that direction. I felt very redundant.
About 3,800 [music] workers retrenched in the first quarter of this year, the highest in four quarters. Professionals were the hardest hit, higher than any other worker groups. There is no publicly available data showing how many of those retrenchments are [music] directly linked to artificial intelligence.
But here's what we've been seeing in our [music] news feeds for a while. Jobs slashed as companies in Singapore and beyond continue the AI push. Now in Singapore, the conversation now [music] centers on what the labor union is calling for, an AI transition [music] with no jobless growth. The idea is that jobs won't be replaced, but redesigned with AI. How realistic [music] is this? And how prepared are you for an AI powered future?
Hello there. Welcome to a special talking point forum. I'm Diana. You saw her in the video earlier and today we have Shamine Cole with us. Do you think you were made redundant because of AI?
Yes, I made basically over 30 videos a month, all all short form content along with seven to eight ads. To be very honest, my boss had saw the efficiency of it as we came to that point where we didn't have to go out so much on shoots making a lot of content creation and mag managing other people. So basically with AI right the deliverables doubled but I couldn't because everything was moving at such a fast pace.
One word describe how you feel about that. Betrayed by whom? Betrayed by the company. But of course, uh, logically speaking, I understand the business side of things.
Let's now take a closer look at the report by the Ministry of Manpower. This is the first ever report on AI adoption among firms in Singapore, featuring over 2,500 companies. Only about 6% of firms that adopted AI reported reducing headcount because of it. The majority reported no reduction in headcount attributable to AI.
Are there employers out there who are using the adoption of AI as a reason or as an excuse to fire people? David, >> um, absolutely yes. I mean, let's just be very transparent about it. We need to break up this break down this this whole AI dimension into the categories of what actually is happening on the ground. The first one is company efficiency in terms of process in terms of times they're overhiring in terms of changes strategy and you find that at times AI is used as a bit of a a lynchpin it's just business operations but things are changing the second one is whereby there's a shift of investments so for example letting go of certain people because they're hiring others and then the final one it's about helping uh um generate things that previously we've been so the nature of job is changing. So once you kind of break it down, you're finding that these three things have different impacts in different context. So it's not that straightforward.
So in unionized companies, uh we actually have very very intimate discussions uh particularly in companies and sectors really going full steam ahead in AI to tell them basically to cut cost to save jobs not cut jobs and save costs and and more importantly to to bring the workers up to speed.
Now David, the adoption of AI across the economy will only accelerate. Is this 6% only the tip of the iceberg?
It well it's the tip of the iceberg if we don't approach it with a human centric approach. If it's a matter of changing of investment okay are we training the people to those particular new jobs? How do we make sure we have a pathway from juniors to seniors? For example, as an AI profession I have learned to embed HR as part of the teams that are involved in overseeing this type of transformation. In long and short, if we don't think about it with the context and how it's being applied, what you're going to find is the seesaw potentially an increase and then as has as happened with some companies, they realize maybe we overdid it. They're going to start hiring in bulk again.
Are companies doing enough to help workers with this transition? Shering, >> I don't think that companies are doing enough to help uh the employees with the transition. Uh let me explain what that means. I don't think they're clear enough with the direction that they're heading. What are we going to do more of? In which areas are we actually going to grow? In which areas are we going to shrink? So without that clarity, employers, their teams, they're kind of operating blind. You know, they're trying to improve on their own in their own time, uh, attending all the trainings, but they're not sure whether that gets them to a job ultimately. Correct. not sure keep their job and into new opportunities because none of that is truly clear.
Why aren't the companies giving clear direction?
I think for the first time um the employers are really going through the uncertainty for themselves.
If I may jump in, >> I think to a certain extent everyone's trying to do their best within the means of what they have. What you may find is that the means that they have isn't sufficient. for example, situations where HR is more administrative rather than exactly focused in terms of how do we develop a person be it they stay in the organization or outside or equally like I used to get and I still ask the question regularly of David how is AI going to look in 5 to 10 years from now.
We're in the S-curve it's very difficult like imagine when typist was a career and someone asks at that point of transition what's going to be the future for typist it's it's very difficult but what needs to be done and definitely is happening ing here in Singapore is a focus on people. If anything, we're given for the first time truly a piece of capabilities to enhance us. Whatever the change are happening, how do we use this opportunity to transform organization with all the traditional efficiencies and cost cutting, but it's about people.
So, this is new to me because everybody is thinking of AI as as tech is about the tech. So the people will come second. But what you were saying is that it has to be spearheaded by people.
I think to add to David's point around what companies can actually do extra in making this clear, it's in terms of sequencing and in terms of pace. Don't skip the necessary steps and pace yourself knowing that it's not going to be someone attending training and the next day they're proficient and and and competent. It's going to take time uh for the individuals as well as for the managers and the leaders.
Okay, we looked earlier at uh Singapore's numbers from MOM and the data doesn't point to widespread AI layoffs. But let's take a look at the US now. In the US, where AI adoption is far more advanced, AI has been the leading reason for job cuts. From January to May this year, AI has been cited in 87,714 cuts. That's a fifth of all layoffs. uh that's already more than the whole of previous years. So David, what will it take? Is is is this is this the inevitable direction that Singapore will be heading towards?
So so I'm uh I call myself pragmatically optimistic and I don't think so. But the picture in my view is only half of what's happening. We talk about layoffs. We don't talk about the jobs being created, new things are being put in place. So I I really do believe that given how we're approaching it, it's not going to be all that gloom.
I think there are a few things about Singapore labor market. uh firstly we have a very tight labor market I mean compared to the US uh so that's uh well in a way helpful that we have intentionally from a policy level try to keep it tight uh and therefore I think companies are also mindful that it's not easy to hire when they you know is after implementing and using generative AI recently the past couple weeks there were reports of companies you know that uh have now made a a U-turn.
They laid off people and now they are hiring more people because they realize guys. Uh, they need people with the competencies, the skills, the product knowledge.
And the domain expertise.
In his 2025 National Day rally speech, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said that and I quote, "Ultimately, our economic strategy is about jobs, jobs, and jobs. That is our number one priority." But recently, the Economic Strategy Review Committee released their final report, the latest blueprint to grow the country's economy. And they say we should not hold back on the deployment of AI and automation to preserve existing jobs. This will erode our competitiveness and ultimately weaken opportunities for our firms and workers. It sounds like a gargantuan task. You need to accelerate and advance the adoption of AI but at the same time you want to preserve every single job.
Yeah, not easy. So I think important uh I also realize that uh you know on the ground as workers are are in better informed better communicated better guided better trained.
They can adapt to some of these challenges much much better and we can redesign redeploy and at the same time also you know make sure no one's left behind.
Okay. Uh, we've heard quite a bit the fact that the picture is more nuanced you know uh there are reasons and it's not not just AI to blame. What does all this mean to you? Does it matter? Because I am on the ground and I'm the one that got laid off, right? I just generally feel that it's something that is constantly happening. So when I got retrenched, I also realized that a lot of other individuals of either my age or a little bit older also got retrenched. So in a sense even if the union says they're taking effort to actually help I think there's only so much they can do and a lot of the companies would really put business first over people.
Okay. So she is saying that businesses at the end of the day bottom line businesses may put profit first rather than people. When people say AI first what exactly do they mean? They don't mean to put AI before people because I was thinking who on earth would publicly say that.
Yeah, they don't think so much sometimes. I would say uh most leaders do suffer from a u like a slip of tongue. Uh and if they don't consciously correct it and they don't consciously say that actually people matter and we've said people first, let's stop using the narrative of AI first.
I think that will be a lot calmer for the people. Don't come up with new buzzwords. Oh yeah.
Uh, if you're genuinely people first, just stick with that. David.
Yeah. No. Um, hearing a lot of these things actually makes me really sad.
Because I I truly love my profession which is AI and I do it again to impact to support to drive. So what what should have been meant by AI first in terms of saying how do we support and drive people through capabilities of AI I think got hijacked. We need to flip it. We need to acknowledge it. I need to flip. It's about people first agenda. The redesigning of jobs should be how can we help you be more, do more, explore more. And to me, any employer, any person that can realize their untapped potential, they will achieve profitability. So yeah, I I that's the direction we should take.
And AI should augment and not replace. I think that's the key.
Line that could go out. If I would give one piece of advice to any leader out there who whether they have the title of AI or not have the title of AI, it's about you. It's about your organization. It's about your employees. However much we rely and we use and we leverage on technology in all of its colors today and the ones that will come in the future, this is not a technology-led agenda. This is a people person individualled agenda and we should never forget that.
If I'm going to go on this AI [music] band to wack it, how long it's going to take me? Just give it to me guys. I can take.
For once the middle age folks like us have advantage.
Yeah, you're absolutely correct. Price Waterhouse Coopers analyzed 1.6 million Singapore job postings last year. There were 30,000 more job postings requiring AI skills in Singapore in 2025 compared to the previous year. Most of these roles were for AI users across different sectors defined as those requiring skills like AI literacy, prompt engineering, data analytics, and machine learning algorithms.
So speaking of AI, I am an AI noob. Okay, so I can tell you it's a bit daunting speaking in front of you. Uh, but I am essentially someone who uses AI for research. Not terribly efficient at it playing with it, but my bottom line is AI is a very capable assistant and I'm supervising uh the technology. Ian, you are an AI consultant and coach to the government as well as MNC's. I would like you to decide to rate my AI literacy. So let's take a look at the scale. So we have uh number one nonuser, >> two basic assisted user, three workflow user, four critical professional user and five strategic AI native operator. So on the scale of five uh what rating would you give me?
Well uh you said you use AI for some research, right? and um you are using it to assist you in your work. So I think yeah you're somewhere around two to three. So to go beyond that you will have to learn how to start automating your work you know creating simple solutions right and let it run on its own to help you free up more time. Yeah.
I see. Okay. Uh, it's already sounding difficult. 2.5 that's like barely pass right? Fail.
Uh, it's okay. You know, we're all at the starting point, so you're probably ahead of most people. There's a good segment of the population, right, which is at the non-user level and still haven't gotten started. So, I would say.
I'm very Singaporean. I must get AAR. [laughter] I will work harder. Okay. Now, I want to What would you what what would you pack Singaporean workers?
Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. I think most Singaporean workers Yeah.
Um would probably be either at level one or two, right? And uh the people who are more advanced would be at level three and four but that's a small percentage. Uh the majority of us who've been using chat GPT since it launched in late 2022 uh should be around level 2.5 right uh similar to you. I think this is where they have gotten accustomed to using AI for augmenting their work. It's just that maybe they haven't been shown how to automate their work. Right. So that's when we go into the higher levels. And when you are a leader, you are managing a company, uh after you learn how to automate your work and help your team do it, you can orchestrate the work. So that would be uh I would say between number four and five when you are strategic AI native operator. But I would say here I would add the word leader, you know, you're leading people in how to use AI.
So I have to say that listening to Ian, it makes the whole idea of AI as a technology less daunting to me because I'm not expected to I mean I don't think I'll be thrown into the deep end. Oh, now you are AI certified, but rather I can take progressive steps and move through the ranks, so to speak. Now, I also want to share that this scale was taken from Czech GPT.
Because my sneaky colleagues fed the question into Chat GPT. It came up with this one and CE GPT gave me a score of 2.5.
Oh, wow.
Okay. Uh, now I want to move on to uh the idea of being AI literate. Uh, it's a bit hazy for most people. What exactly does that mean? Mhm. Um I think fundamentally is first understanding what this technology is that is really a tool and that it processes data and gives you uh data in different forms whether it's in text, visuals, audio and so on, right? Or even applications as you will see. So it once you understand that this is a tool and what you can use it for then you can start to learn how to apply to your work and that's where your literacy starts to increase. Yeah.
Can I just ask is that the same as computer literacy? Because when you know I'm computer literate? I know how to use a computer. I I know how to use certain software. Is that the same thing?
I I would argue that yes and a certain degree. Now, while the sophistication perhaps may be slightly different, but the answer is yes. Imagine Excel when it was first introduced. You had a certain degree of oh now you need to be Excel certified, you need to be Excel literate. And I'm pretty sure that back then people were equally um um slightly confused and unsure. But again, it's a spectrum. It's a spectrum of usability.
The new jobs that are asking for people with skills like data engineering, for skills like AI literacy. Uh, I know David, when companies have such job postings, it makes me feel like do I qualify? David, you are laughing. like and know I'm laughing because if I'd see a job that says I need AI literacy, I would probably just walk away from it. Um, because you need to be specific. It's almost like saying I need someone who just can do English. Okay, literacy and presentation, you know, is it articulation? Is it like what specifically do you want?
So, do they even know what they are asking for?
That's the question. I don't think some do. uh some may have a sense of what they want but they don't know how to perhaps better articulate it and then the other one is you actually find that some are very specific in terms of what is it they're looking for and what is it that they're hoping to achieve and ironically many times the AI emphasis started to becomes less and less and it's more about the outcome of what they want trying to achieve with it.
Okay, what about AI fluency what does AI Patrick?
I think AI fluency varies across different traits sectors, industries. Um, if you are in a very tech sector, fluency may mean, you know, very critical, deep skills in tech. But, however, fluency maybe perhaps in the office environment may mean very, very different things. Yes, uh, basic literacy, AI literacy is something we are hoping to achieve in the next couple of years with uh, AI ready SG, which the labor movement has been pushing and nationally, we're on this big drive. And recently the financial sector we wanting to train everyone 100,000 in fact in the next three years with a basic literacy skills. But I think the the next step is fluencies. What does fluency means for me?
I think this is something which um is a bit perplexing to most people because there's so many tools right but let's I think start first with how good are you at your job? Your domain expertise. Let's start there. Right? So when you're good at your job you kind of know what tools you want to use. So if let's say I'm a chef, right? And I if I'm very good at cooking fried rice, I'll use a different set of kitchen tools versus say I'm baking a cake where I'll use an oven and everything instead of a walk, right? So I'll pick the right tool for my uh the outcome that I want. So in the case of AI, if I were say um, you know, I'm only dealing with words. I don't need to create AI videos, right? Um, that's not my job scope, right? And so I need to know which AI tools are very good with processing of text. Uh, and if I'm in the video production field, I need to know uh how to create better videos and maybe I'm not so focused on script writing right for that particular job role. So this AI fluency is first understanding yourself, your job, what is important your job and then knowing the range, you know, just a few tools out there which are good for your particular type of work. So you're fluent in the tools that you choose and then you can get the output that you want.
I want to talk about the timeline. I'll use two examples. Someone like Shamine who is in her 20s. Is there a timeline where we say that she can be AI fluent?
So someone in her 20s uh assuming she has all the domain knowledge that Ian is speaking of and it showed the ropes. I would say that in order for her to get AI literate within two months she's probably pretty confident already.
Okay. Because she's working within her own domain, her own processes.
And if she really wants to go like a step further to say uh building her own workflows, uh if you do have uh capable team members like who are already AI fluent to show her the steps of setting up a project to set up the workflow with samples, >> it's another two months. And then off the back of it, she needs to get comfortable with checking the outputs of her workflow. So another two months. So.
That's like six months. 6 months.
That's pretty fast.
And you just gave me the idea that maybe we need AI buddies at the workplace.
Yes, you do.
Right. We need AI buddies in the workplace. Okay, let's go to the harder question. For someone like me who is double Sham's age, if I'm going to go on this AI band wagon, how long it's going to take me? Just give it to me, guys. I can take it.
Maybe 3 months.
Why? Why so fast?
Because your domain expertise um spans more many years, right? I shan say the number of years. So the the thing here is the the the funny thing middle-aged people don't realize is that because you have all this experience and you have uh many skills a mess over time and now when you're presented with new tools and if you know that okay I can do these certain things with these new tools you would actually learn how to use these tools a lot faster than a young person. And so this is maybe you could call it reverse agism right for once the middle-aged folks like us have an advantage.
Yeah, you're absolutely correct. That's why we are trying to reassure the older workers as well as those who are mid-career workers workers because of the very fact they have domain expertise.
They will be able to ask the right questions.
You know, fill the find the blind spots much more faster than someone who is really new to the trade. We're dealing with a slight nuance if I may on a technology where it's not just a tool to use let's say a mouse. There is a suddenly a dimension of converse of dialogue discourse or in some cases in my case arguments. It is how you frame the question how you frame the objective. If you would ask me David what would be the most critical thing you would want to train or teach someone when it comes to this particular space.
It will not be coding. It won't be development. And it won't be the general bed of AI. It would be literally be critical thinking in terms of how do you phrase a question. The biggest challenge that I face when I help organizations, individuals, and I'm sure you face the same is helping that domain expert take that knowledge in the haze and phrase it and frame it.
I want to read you a quote from a Facebook post by former MP Amrin Amen in the wake of the recent layoffs. uh and he wrote, "The mid-career operations manager who loses a job cannot simply retrain as an AI engineer on demand. Not everyone has the savings, the aptitude, time, or opportunity to reinvent themselves. Many workers are already balancing jobs, children, aging parents, and rising costs. Retraining sounds good in a speech. Living through it is another matter." Ian, you are nodding. What are your thoughts?
Yes. And uh this is a reality, right? And we should not deny it. And this is where employers more than ever need to give space to their staff, their workers to have time to get used to the technology and to learn. So um like a company that organizes a one or two day training is sacrificing operational time to do training. But then after that they run into the next problem which is after the workshop the training workshop do the staff um, you know, deploy what they have learned.
And so the forwardlooking bosses also help them with how they're trying to implement AI in their workflow.
Yeah. So it's it's about carving out time.
Ian's point is that employers must give time to to workers. But in relation to memes, what kind of challenge do you have?
It's an operational challenge because you know they have very small workforce. one person is doing number of jobs and then there's really no time uh or space uh to carve out to to do some of this learning that's why we have been you know introducing blended learning and maybe online on the job on the go kind of learning so that they do it peace meal. I think this is possible. So I think increasingly we need to you know be more creative in uh bring people up to speed. It's not going to be like a full 3 months 6 months uh course or program. It may be just a 3-minute uh uh.
So What you're saying now, according to the Microsoft 2026 work trend index, 66% of AI users in Singapore say they are producing work they could not have created a year ago. But here is the catch. Only 24% feel there is leadership alignment on AI. Sherilling, what does that mean? Leadership alignment on AI. Um, leadership alignment could be thought of as you know what are the problems or opportunities that the company as a whole are consistently working towards. I think that's very important. You don't want them going off on different tangents. Then it's on actually what you want to start, stop and continue. What are the new behaviors, new conversations, new measures of success that you want to make clear as the company embarks on an AI journey?
Okay. And that that has to be communicated to >> properly and in a timely fashion with your internal speaker [clears throat] because I also feel that uh, you know, you're only as strong as the weakest link. So everyone in the hierarchy uh, you know, leadership not just top leadership but middle management even supervisors on the ground everyone has to be aligned on uh what's in what's at stake what's in store what's the in demand skills and what they need to do moving forward.
Well, and and most critically what is the strategy.
AI isn't the strategy. AI is a lever that is used to achieve the strategy.
What is it? And that's effectively what one would expect from the leaders. This is where we're heading to.
There's something more wow that you know I can ask AI to do.
Every 6 months we see a big leap in capabilities. I could do it now. I cannot promise that there will be no disruption. Jobs will change. Some will disappear and the pace of change will be faster than anything we have seen before. But this I can promise you as our economy transforms we will create new and better jobs.
And that was an excerpt from Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's Mayday speech this year. He said the pace of change will be faster than anything we've ever seen. Is that true?
Ian?
Yes. Yes, definitely. So I'm old enough to have grown up through the personal computing phase, then the internet phase, and then the web phase, web 2.0, right, with cloud computing and so on. And and now this phase is moving so fast, right? It's only been it's been slightly nearly four years since Chat GP launched, >> right? And today we have billions of people using AI. And AI's progress from the early days of Chat GBT till now is phenomenal. Every 6 months we see a big leap in capabilities.
How do we keep up? How do we keep up if it's changing that quickly?
Focus on your domain knowledge. Focus on your transferable skills and go easy on yourself in terms of catching up with the tools because even the experts are finding it hard to keep up with the tools. It's a full-time job.
Even myself and again I'm so-called an AI expert. I have an AI buddy. I have an AI expert that I converse with, I strategize with, I think with fundamentally different from a few years ago.
So I'm hearing this many times in today's conversation and that is I have mastery over my domain. Uh, don't be distracted by the fact that someone else could pay very little money to use an AI voice instead of me. I must believe that I have mastery over my skills and one day humans will prevail.
100%.
Okay. [laughter] Okay. I I I'm going to have to really really believe that. Now I I want to take a look at uh this study by London School of Economics and it says that one of the things that's reported is that professionals are using AI uh who are using AI rather are saving an average of 7.5 hours per week. That's an entire work day. Is there more to AI than just saving time? Ian, you can tell us more about the power of AI.
Okay. Um, one of the things that I use AI for is to understand difficult things. I work at NTEU and sometimes there's uh there are new research papers that come in and may be in new realms of um of uh knowledge, right, that I may not be familiar with. So, I put it into AI and I I'll teach everybody this easy prompt, EI5, right? Explain like I'm 5 years old. Just put any document you don't understand into chat GBT or Gemini and just write one prompt. E R I5 explain like I'm five years old.
Give me an example.
Like for example, right? Let's say um I have um I have a report of my latest um my blood um test results, right, that I received from the clinic, right? You can take a picture of it. uh even though it's all sorts of numbers and um, you know, things that you may not understand take a picture of it put it in the chat GPT and just write one prompt. EI5 and it will explain to you as best as it knows how what um the the blood readings blood test readings mean, right?
Okay, so does this prompt work?
Give me a summary of my blood test results so that I do not need to pay extra money to see my doctor.
You still need to see your doctor. Because uh, okay, this is an important thing. We can use AI for many things, but AI cannot be responsible for your health.
No, wait a minute. I need to ask though. If I'm going to be uploading my blood test results, essentially very very uh private information onto some platform, how can I be sure that it's secure?
Uh, well, the first tip I give people is uh leave out your personal details like your name and your address and just put the numbers up because that's just data, >> right? and and um there are billions of people who take a blood test.
So, you're no different from many people out there. It's not going to be um, you know, absolutely correct. Uh, it will give you a good opinion, a probable answer of what your blood test results mean. And so that's just like a second opinion and if you feel that your doctor is not giving you the full picture or maybe you didn't catch what the doctor said during the consultation, uh, this is where AI comes in very handy.
Yeah. On the privacy point, just two more for the audiences is one is a subscription-based versus premium. Remember nothing is really free.
And the third one is effectively a lot of these providers will have private option where effectively anything you converse or upload does not get retained and effectively gets destroyed once that instance is unlike a scenario whereby you have a history. So you can always go back to a prior conversation. So you do have that comfort that confidentiality is actually being upheld.
Okay. So, let's see a quick demo, right, of how you could save time and spend more time on the valuable parts of your job instead. So, I'm going to open up my computer here, right? And I have here Google Gemini, which is an alternative to using Chat GBT, right? And uh I think um the top three AI uh apps in the world today are ChatGpt, Google Gemini, and Claude. Uh, so I use all three and uh I like to use Google Gemini to create software prototypes. So let's say that I have many receipts that I want to convert to an Excel file. So I purchased products or I have invoices and uh I have taken pictures of them but I don't want to type all the details into an Excel sheet. What is the fastest way that I could save time with this? So I'll make my own AI app. Uh, and this process is called VIPE coding. Vibbe, VIP coding, and it's become very popular in the past year. Uh, where you can create little apps that to help you with your work. Create an app for me to upload my receipts, multiple receipts, and extract four uh pieces of info. Okay, which is the date of purchase, the brand, uh the product description, and the final price paid. Okay, then add a button to export as a CSV file. And this can be done for free, right? Any free user of Gemini can do this. I'm just going to press this submit button and let's watch something happen on the screen. So Gemini will think about the problem and it will begin coding at high speed.
So I need to ask you it says create an app for me like for rail.
Yeah, for real.
So so this platform is an app developer as well.
Yes, you can I could do it now, right?
Okay. So very quickly, what what does that mean for app developers? Are they going to be out of a job if you and I and everyone can?
Just a trillion dollar question. Are app developers going to be out of a job? Well, um, you need to be the top five to 10% uh in any field, right? Not just in app development to flourish in the AI age. As we were discussing, you'll see that AI is writing code at very high speed, right? Uh, faster than any human can do. This whole process is just going to take a few minutes, right? No human could write all these code um, these lines of code in such a short period of time. So, it's done, right? So, now I'm going to click preview here. May I jump in on that question?
The real question is how does one code? Like if I look at how I was trained to code, >> if I would have continued to code the same way, yeah, I will not be a job. But you still need a coder. You still need someone to review that code and saying is it correct? Does it make sense? Imagine what I've just done. I'm going to deploy it into the main frame of a banking environment.
No, you need to have people that to make sure that it does integrate testing valid.
The point also is that there will be fewer code coders. There will be fewer coders required.
Today.
Yes. And if you want to stay in the game, Ian's point is that you've got to be the top how many% if you want to stay in the game.
Yep.
Okay.
So, we're doing this in real time and I have two receipts here to show you. Now, we see an app here, right? This has been coded by AI. I'm just going to browse my desktop files and put two uh these two receipts inside here. And straight away, it starts to work on the files, right? And um in a minute it's going to say I've extracted the information. Look at this. I have a IKEA receipt $442.80, right? And the Wingsong fatties receipt for $41.97. Now the next part of the magic comes when I press this button. Export the CSV file. I'm just going to press export. I'm just going to save it to my desktop. And let's take a look at this file that opens in Excel. So I have the date of purchase. I have the brand of merchant. I have the products um or the dishes that I bought and the final price and even the file name. And we did all this in real time for free.
So what's left for me to do as someone who hates I mean we I need my money back but no one likes claims, right? So what's left for me to do is really to take a photo of all the receipts say for January and then I will just have to upload everything and maybe go off and do get a coffee or something and when I come back I should be able to get this Excel spreadsheet. Yes.
Okay. Shelling, what are your thoughts about what you've just seen?
Ian did it in record time, and I would say for someone who's really wanting to get a sense of what AI can do for them personal productivity wise, by all means, try this. Would it be sufficient for you to be developing enterprise systems? Uh, to David's point, no. scanning receipts will make my life easier, but is there something more wow that you know I can ask AI to do?
But let me show you a simple example. I've been um trying to improve my Mandarin for 10 years. I found uh a file with 11,000 Chinese words. So I created an app to put the words into flash cards which I could teach myself, right? And go level by level. So if you look at this app, it looks kind of simple, but this is a flash card. If I were to click on it, it will flip around and show me the phonetics, the height opinion as well as the English meaning. Now.
Wait, why why would one want to why would I want to do this when there are already apps that do such things?
Correct. So in this case, uh I found a huge library of words and I would like to learn all these 11,000 words. If you were to buy physical flash cards, nobody sells 11,000 flash cards in a box. And uh if you say you wanted to teach a particular topic um and you want to have uh certain phrases or visuals on it, you can create very specific flash cards that are not out in the market.
Can I ask it to give me an audio uh pronunciation as well? Because the whole point of learning a language is to know how to speak it.
Okay. A new challenge for today. So right now I'm going to type a simple prompt uh to say I want to add a button so that it reads out the Chinese word that's on display. I will type a prompt and uh let me think. So the prompt uh maybe to teach the audience here we don't have to write complicated prompts. We just have to say what we want. It's about your intentionality. So in this case, while it's fixing the thing in the background, I'm just going to say add a button to uh say out the word.
So is it I see it loading loading. So is it trying to figure out to put in the audio button now? [laughter]
Okay. So let's look at uh this version of the app which has an audio button. And if I to press this okay uh let me see let me switch on my audio. Okay. And uh okay let's see. Okay. So this is this word is ala right and let's press it.
Ah okay. So next word let's test it. Okay. I.
Yeah. So now I have added functionality to my app uh all with the help of one prompt and uh so whatever features you want to add or you want to remove you just prompt it. So basically how long will it take if if I was quite comfortable with building apps via such platforms how long will it take for me to do this?
Um, when you're creating simple apps like the receipt processing app uh maybe a few minutes.
For something like this it took me about half a day and take note that I'm used to creating apps with AI. It still took me half a day to think through what should the app look like? What is the user journey? uh what are the things that could go wrong and try to work around them to.
I I I imagine that if I was a mother with young children, I might feel quite motivated to design an app like this and I could include so many things. I could put in pictures uh of illustration as well the the sound.
We're actually demonstrating in real time if you've noticed that shift the execution and the coding and all that is done. the time that you were just spending that Ian has spent is the thinking, the design, the intent and that's something that perhaps I would argue previously maybe we didn't have that much time because I would have to spend a week or two weeks or three weeks or a month a few months to build. Now we can spend that time to really think of what is it that we're trying to create and is it meeting the intended objectives. That's the shift in terms of the type of roles that we need. And uh the next question that most people ask is how much does this cost? So you can't do this for free, but to create this app to begin with, it cost me maybe a dollar worth of tokens and then to improve it maybe another few dollars. But compare that to developing this uh with in a traditional software environment that would cost $100,000 and maybe a few months. Wow. Right. Right.
Important question. We some of us are entitled to the government's free six-month subscription to AI premium tools. what you have just used is it covered by that?
I don't know the details of that but I encourage people to invest in themselves.
Right, do not wait and you see uh through our AI radg through our union training assistance program we actually fund uh also 50% of AI tools and includes Gemini clock pro and uh co-pilot and uh the pro version of course not the premium version.
Yep.
Okay fabulous we're running out of time so I'm going to wrap up by asking what is the most important thing that I need to do now whether I'm an employer or an or a worker. What is the one thing I need to do now to coexist with AI in the workplace?
I think I would say you need to be agile and adaptable because uh things will change and change is happening at the break neck speeds. Uh to keep up with all this, you really need to uh uh be agile and adaptable.
I would say consider creating jobs that are actually part-time. So rather than considering a full 5-day work week job, consider what could be a three-day work week.
So you're talking about from the uh from the perspective of the employer for workers to also consider a shorter work week.
I would say that first of all the company needs to design for it.
That's the first part to consider that if potentially our goal is a uh a productivity goal, right? So from 100% of time shortened to 60% of them to create the same output. Then rather than saying this person is out of a job forcing him to go onto training to go take up a different job. We're saying okay you're working that remaining three days of the job.
Okay David one key takeaway what should I do now?
So it's less worry about the how less worry about the technology focus in terms whether it's for yourself individually like you asked earlier what you've been done for example I've been writing tremendously and as someone who's dyslexic writing is extraordinarily difficult I can do it in significant ease in putting out my thoughts focus on that.
Use AI 5 to 10 minutes a day on real problems. I think real work problems like for example converting invoices and receipts into an Excel file. All of us have work problems. And if you just think about what is it about my work that I find mundane or repetitive and I don't like to do now just try AI and ask AI what what could I do with with you, right?
Yeah, I really like that because what you were saying is we need to demystify AI [music] and then our fear will hopefully subside and we will be able to embrace it more in our work lives. Thank you all my guests uh for sharing your views [music] and your perspectives and for you thank you for joining us.