I wrote and spoke a lot about AI this past week, mostly about its impact on the workforce. Here we go:
I appeared on MoneyFM 89.3 on Lynlee Foo’s radio program to talk about the evolving AI situation in Singapore. People and companies are feeling a lot of pressure to embrace AI. I say they should be steady about it. Also…
I wish people would stop denying that AI is impacting jobs. In the past week, Meta and Standard Chartered Bank have slashed about 16,000 jobs, and this will only ramp up in multiple industries. Every knowledge worker needs to consider why this is happening and what they will do about it. But when you ponder, don’t be quick to say “Oh, they’re just retrenching people to improve profits”. If you know how businesses work, their goal is to improve their profits all the time, and they are seeing the opportunity to cut costs with AI, whether it’s through implementing AI workflows or removing people who are not able to apply AI to produce better results (not AI slop, but actually better results).
But how about fresh grads entering the workforce? I was a super intern and I believe there is much good in doing internships. However, I do not agree that fresh grads need to clock at least two years of internship just to get their first job. Even in the age of AI disruption, some fundamentals of dedicated mentorship and training of young people cannot be abandoned.
If you can communicate well with humans, you’ll find it easier to communicate with machines. I wrote this article for NTU’s campus magazine “Hey!”.
Google has launched its latest multimodal AI video engine called Omni. Here’s my first spin with it and here’s why I’m still not spending much time with AI videos.
Google also made some changes to its AI subscription plans. Here’s the best new feature added to my S$30 plan – YouTube Premium Lite. I’m still waiting for it to be activated though.
Yes, yes, we all know Gen AI hallucinates and makes up stuff. But it’s humans who allow made-up stuff to be published. Here’s a real story that AI couldn’t make up.
You should not pay any membership fee to join an AI community.
Use AI to help your health, such as reading nutrition labels.
Non-AI stuff
The most popular post of the week was about the Swatch x Audemars Piguet collaboration. I don’t have much good things to say about it, but I was even more annoyed with strangers commenting how little I know about watches. At one point in my life, I was obsessed with watches and owned 25 mechanical ones, then I realised I only had two wrists and I didn’t like winding them. I sold almost all of them and only wear a Garmin Forerunner now.
It’s been one month since I bought my MacBook Air. I’m still slowly weaning myself on it, but I don’t think I’ll buy a Windows laptop for a long time.