Filtered by: Department of Information Systems & Analytics
Entry-level jobs aren't scarce in Singapore – they're just not where most graduates want them. That's the core finding of The Straits Times' piece "The great graduate divide: Why the job hunt is a struggle for some fresh graduates", which uses Ministry of Manpower data to show vacancies are plentiful in public administration, education, and health and social services, but far tighter in the infocomm and financial sectors graduates tend to chase. The piece also looks at how universities and polytechnics are recalibrating for tighter, more AI-literate hiring expectations, with input from academics at NUS, NTU, SMU, SIT, SUTD and Temasek Polytechnic.
Associate Professor Sharon Tan (Vice Dean, Industry Relations) was quoted on the sector's AI shift. She said AI adoption will create a strong need for professionals who can responsibly design, build, evaluate and deploy these systems. She added that Singapore's continued investment in AI research, infrastructure and enterprise adoption is expected to sustain demand for computing talent over the longer term, even as hiring conditions stay more subdued than during the recent tech boom.
Anthropic made headlines last month when it called for a worldwide pause in frontier AI development, warning that AI systems may be approaching a point where they can autonomously improve themselves without human input.
Writing in Channel NewsAsia, NUS School of Computing's Professor Jungpil Hahn takes the proposal seriously — but asks the question the report leaves unanswered: a pause toward what, exactly? Without defined exit criteria, he argues, it amounts to little more than a deferral. The enforcement challenge is equally steep: unlike nuclear arms control, AI training runs are easy to conceal, and in the context of US-China strategic competition, coordinated compliance would be strategically irrational for either side.
Prof Hahn also raises a dimension the debate has largely missed. Every governance framework depends on human judgment to function — and that judgment is being quietly shaped right now by the AI tools already embedded in how policymakers research, how analysts reason and how the next generation of experts is trained. For Singapore and the ASEAN region, he argues, how we structure AI adoption today will determine whether we retain the institutional capacity to participate meaningfully in AI governance at all.
In a Straits Times feature on Singapore's national AI strategy, Professor Jungpil Hahn, Provost's Chair Professor at NUS School of Computing highlighted a key concern amid the excitement over AI adoption: the potential for deskilling.
Referring to a study published in The Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology in August 2025, Prof Hahn observed that clinicians who frequently depended on AI to detect pre-cancerous lesions gradually lost their ability to identify these growths on their own. This issue goes beyond healthcare, highlighting how professionals in any field might, over time, diminish the very skills AI was designed to enhance.
He suggested setting aside intentional AI-free intervals. "Having explicit days or periods where you know you have to do the task without AI actually forces the institutions, companies or organisations to maintain that capability level," he explained. He also urged organisations to monitor employees' abilities before and after adopting AI – not to restrict the technology, but to make sure human judgment stays sharp.
According to Prof Hahn, the real issue isn’t whether to adopt AI, but how to do so without sacrificing what no algorithm can ever replace.
