As I'm facing an empty semester, I've been trying to be as productive as possible, putting a lot of effort into getting up to speed on the latest AI developments. It began with going to the Polytechnic to attend an in-house session on how AI can assist lecturers in making their lives easier; I was pretty stunned that I could create a slide deck on Intellectual Property Law ( complete with local references to legal cases ) when I had never taken Intellectual Property Law as a module in SMU. My services may cease to be required by public institutions in the future, as in-house lecturers can do much more with less.
To deal with this existential fear, I signed up for a foundational module under the Artificial Intelligence Apprenticeship Program to improve my coding skills. While I had no issues learning the material and incorporating data analytical skills into my investment coursework, I was intimidated by how the course is thoroughly run by AI. The lecture video can explain the concepts well with a decent accent, but the lecturer looks artificially constructed as he did not blink often enough. The assessment was highly effective as the AI could mark my qualitative answers, tell me how my answers lacked detail, and even assign a grade to me in real-time. This is replacing post-graduate educational courses, so students only need to show up to perform labs or role-playing sessions.
Of course, learning is only half the story; I have to figure out how to use ChatGPT to solve practical issues. My web application for my investment course has flashed many warnings over the years since it has existed. These warnings are harmless but may be signs that my code will be deprecated one day, so proactive elimination of warnings is a good idea. I resolved all warnings in one night as ChatGT-4o could explain what the warnings were and tell me exactly what code I needed to change to remove it for good.
As I was pretty happy with ChatGPT and the more straightforward programming tasks, I restarted my attempt to host my web application on the cloud, something I had been unable to do since my last deployment broke years ago, and I have hosted my website from my laptop ever since. So, I patiently copied my code to the cloud and attempted to bring up my website, sending error messages to ChatGPT, which would patiently suggest what to do. While the AI did not get it right the first time around, I was able to have my website up within about 2 hours of troubleshooting. This required amending code that I did not write, and my understanding of software engineering is in drips and drabs. I have been an IT systems administrator, project manager and compliance professional for most of my career, so I have never done coding professionally.
I see a lot more disruption on the horizon. I was enrolled in a new AI called Manus AI, and within hours, I could generate an analyst report for Jardine C&C with quality and explanation that seemed better than ChatGPt-4o. The free version of ChatGPt felt that Jardine C&C was worth six times more than the current market price. The paid version was more accurate, projecting the price to be about 10% above the market price. Manus AI gave me a fair, comprehensive sell report.
Over the next few days, I'll pass a few employment contracts through Manus AI to see whether it can identify critical clauses and point me to the proper case law to resolve the legal issue. If it does, it means that all three of my degree qualifications that I've worked so hard for would become obsolete pretty soon. What I know would not be worth much compared to my knowledge of how I ask an AI to solve the practical issues I'm facing in my business.
So there you have it.
It's not about a bunch of creatives who are upset because you tried to turn family photos into something resembling a Studio Ghibli animation. With such practical tools, IT professional teams can shrink by at least 10%, causing widespread unemployment. My ERM students no longer require brokerage reports to assess potential stock picks. DBS is not renewing the contracts of some of their contract workers.
Lastly, I suspect the next-generation tool, even if it might not be able to replace a legal professional, may force law firms, at the very least, to be able to set fixed fees for legal work instead of hourly billing rates; this is Kryptonite to a sector that has grown fat over the years. If anything, in-house counsels are way more innovative and have superior AI tools to assist them, so they will try to pay law firms less.
Financially, I'm safe for now; I might not need to do anything drastic to survive in Singapore, but I will likely rush headfirst into AI programmes at NUS. It might not be too late for a creative, a bookkeeper or even a coder who is extremely unhappy to pick up a blue-collar skill like plumbing, electrical work, or a heavy vehicle driving licence.
I suspect the future may not look good for cognitive workers, so plumbing and home repairs might become popular CCAs in NUS.
