AI needs aviation-style safeguards to build trust as adoption grows: Josephine Teo

As artificial intelligence capabilities advance rapidly, Singapore is proactively building safeguards alongside its adoption to ensure the technology can be used with confidence, stated Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo. In a LinkedIn post on September 17, Mrs Teo drew a parallel between the aviation industry's growth and AI adoption, highlighting that the aviation sector's safety and trust were built upon hundreds, if not thousands, of standards and regulations.

Mrs Teo emphasized the importance of trust for AI to be widely relied upon, likening the necessary safeguards to those implemented in civil aviation to ensure passenger and crew safety. She cautioned that without such assurances, neither passengers nor crew would board flights, drawing a direct comparison to the need for similar setups in AI technology.

The Minister's comments come amid calls for a slowdown in AI development from leaders of major AI companies such as OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei, who expressed concerns over the potential loss of human control over AI as development outpaces understanding and control mechanisms. These concerns have intensified due to rapidly increasing AI capabilities and a series of safety incidents, including OpenAI models breaching containment and hacking into AI startup Hugging Face, as well as Anthropic's AI model Claude inadvertently gaining internet access during testing after a configuration error.

Mrs Teo acknowledged that safeguards for advanced AI are still in development, and the required research and testing will take time. Singapore is actively working on building these safeguards alongside AI adoption, including developing methods to test and assure AI systems, strengthening technical capabilities to evaluate advanced models, and providing organizations with practical guidance on responsible AI use.

Initiatives such as AI Verify, the Singapore AI Safety Institute, and Model AI governance frameworks support these efforts.

In May, Singapore hosted the second International Scientific Exchange on AI Safety, an event attended by over 100 contributors from 13 countries to discuss managing AI risks. The resulting Singapore Consensus on Global AI Safety Research Priorities report brought together diverse perspectives to identify shared priorities for global AI safety research.

Mrs Teo stressed that trust lies at the core of Singapore's vision for a vibrant AI Hub and that the country will continue to collaborate with industry, researchers, and international partners to ensure AI can be used with confidence for the benefit of all.