In November 2022, OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that has been used by many writers, programmers, lawyers, and scientists among other curious people. It quickly gained popularity for its detailed responses to a variety of topics. Granted, its limitations were quickly discovered as ChatGPT fell victim to sharing misinformation since the AI was not designed to authenticate information found on the internet.

Naysayers raised alarm bells about AI replacing humans. Yet, AI sparked a curious debate about its potential to enhance human ingenuity, especially at the workplace. Even as the debate raged on, improvements to AI continued. GPT-4, ChatGPT’s successor was first launched on 16th March 2023. China’s Baidu developed Ernie, a similar AI programme to ChatGPT. Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced plans to develop AI capabilities to enhance its Office 365 suite.

AI trends in Southeast Asia

In a 2023 poll covering over 9,000 respondents from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines, only 36% of respondents were excited about AI. A staggering 37% were ambivalent about the topic and 27% of respondents feared AI.

The ambivalence towards AI could be explained by the lack of exposure to it. Despite ChatGPT making headlines and many using AI for fun purposes, productive use at the workplace, for example, is not as widespread. In its early days, ChatGPT and AI in general were perceived as fun little online toys and an aid to work, not job-stealing software. But this notion is increasingly being challenged with AI expected to affect these 20 jobs and human competencies in the coming days.

Countries at the forefront of AI

In the past decade, China has risen to be a major proponent of AI technology. The now-infamous social credit system uses advanced AI and facial recognition technologies to monitor and assess the trustworthiness of individuals, companies, and government agencies in China. Controversy aside, the social credit system is a remarkably sophisticated and comprehensive application of AI technology for the public.

Despite the Chinese head start, most in Southeast Asia believe that American companies will be the major leaders in AI development. American firms such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft (12-13% according to polls) were ranked highly compared to Chinese companies Alibaba and Huawei (3-4% only). Recency bias from ChatGPT’s success coupled with China’s economic slowdown may have tampered expectations among Southeast Asians.

Next wave of AI applications

The success of ChatGPT and GPT-4 proves the viability of language-recognition AI for public use. For businesses, AI has the potential to disrupt business operations. According to 13% of Southeast Asians, AI will take over customer service. While businesses might see an opportunity to cut costs as customer service is a labour-intensive role, some companies might see opportunities to differentiate themselves. Even the most advanced AIs today will fail the Turing test. With customers preferring human interactions, a complete pivot to AI customer service might not be the wisest decision.

AI’s development also sparks ethical questions for both businesses and governments. With much of the focus being on the technical capabilities of AI, the ethics angle seems to be forgotten. Microsoft’s push for AI-integration into its products was also marked by layoffs of its AI ethics teams. This is a curious decision given the criticality of teaching employees and developers the potential ethical dilemmas AI presents. GPT-4 already has the capability to devise escape plans, something noted for the first time in its technical report. Developers need to know how to contain rogue AIs, and ethics teams play an important role in such containment.

For governments, they will need to grapple with fears of mass technological unemployment. 31% of Southeast Asians now believe that AI will result in higher unemployment as there will be less need for humans to carry out work. However, 33% also believe that some jobs will be replaced but the addition of new ones will be created to “balance things out.”

While the optimism is welcome, the fears around unemployment are not irrational. Technological unemployment has happened before with computers and its consequences were felt by the vulnerable. AI has the potential to impact millions without proper public policy measures.

AI development will continue to march forward even as the ethical debates continue. For businesses, AIs have the potential to enhance business operations if used in tandem with human ingenuity. For governments, the social issues such as unemployment and public unrest are difficult challenges that AI presents. To learn more about public reception towards AI and how businesses and governments can leverage to develop new AI-oriented policies, reach out to us at connect@blackbox.com.sg