Singapore’s government wants the country’s banks and financial firms to rethink their use of artificial intelligence.
Rather than simply using AI to cut jobs, these organizations should deploy the technology to create better jobs and train employees for better roles, according to Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong, Reuters reported Wednesday (May 20).
“For Singapore, the answer cannot be to hold back change,” Gan said at the DBS Leaders Dialogue event, per the report. “If we slow AI adoption, we will weaken our competitiveness and ultimately hurt workers more, not less.”
His comments came one day after Standard Chartered, a bank that counts Singapore as one of its main hubs, said it would cut around 8,000 jobs by the end of the decade as its AI usage increases.
“It’s not cost-cutting; it’s replacing, in some cases, lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital we’re putting in,” CEO Bill Winters said in remarks he would later try to walk back following online outrage.
As Bloomberg News reported, some of that outrage came from former Singapore President Halimah Yacob, who blasted the CEO’s terminology in a Facebook post, calling it “disturbing” to speak of workers in such clinical terms.
Source – https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/singapore-wants-banks-use-ai-create-jobs/