INTERVENTION BY FIRST SECRETARY MATTHEW WONG OF SINGAPORE AT THE FIFTH THEMATIC DEEP DIVE ON THE GLOBAL DIGITAL COMPACT ON THE ISSUE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, CONFERENCE ROOM 1 AT UNHQ, THURSDAY, 25 MAY 2023, 10.00AM

Co-Facilitators,

1 Thank you for convening today’s discussions and for your useful guiding questions.

2 Singapore advocates taking a balanced approach towards AI governance. We must harness the opportunities for innovation brought about by AI for the benefit of our citizens, while also safeguarding their interests and mitigating the potential risks.

3 In line with the G77 and China’s call for a meaningful, action-oriented Global Digital Compact (GDC), we propose three concrete initiatives the GDC could adopt to promote the use of AI to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs.

4 First, the GDC should encourage the development of AI solutions in service of social good and the SDGs. Technological progress alone is not sufficient to deliver social benefits. While vast resources are being directed towards the development of AI, these are primarily being channelled towards commercial applications of AI. We must make sure that energy, creativity, and investment is also directed towards the development and deployment of AI applications with broader social and public benefits. In Singapore, we are doing this through our National AI Programmes in the areas of healthcare, logistics, education, smart estates, border security, finance and governance. For example, as part of the National AI Programme in healthcare, we have developed and deployed the Singapore Eye LEsioN Analyser (SELENA+) deep learning system to detect three major eye conditions. The GDC should spur the development of similar efforts at the global level. A noteworthy initiative in this regard is ITU’s AI for Good platform, which seeks to identify practical applications of AI to advance the SDGs and scale those solutions for global impact. The GDC is an opportunity for the international community to reinforce our support for such platforms within the UN system, as well as an opportunity for the UN to identify and provide meaningful support for promising and scalable AI projects with potential to deliver significant public benefits. 

5 Second, the GDC should promote the development of practical tools and processes that enable innovators to harness AI while minimizing potential risks. These tools could be developed as digital public goods by UN agencies in partnership with interested States and stakeholders, and could be made freely available globally. The development of common global tools could also help facilitate interoperability between various AI governance initiatives by providing assurances that AI systems have been tested and evaluated to a sufficiently high standard. In Singapore, we have developed a Model AI Governance Framework, which provides actionable guidance to organisations on addressing key ethical and governance issues when deploying AI solutions. The accompanying Implementation and Self-Assessment Guide for Organisations provides useful examples to guide organizations in their implementation of the Model Framework. We have also developed A.I. Verify, an AI governance self-testing framework and toolkit giving organisations the ability to voluntarily conduct self-assessments through a combination of standardised technical tests and process checks. This allows them to verify the claimed performance of their AI systems against a set of internationally accepted principles relating to transparency, fairness and ethics. We would be happy to share our experiences in more detail and contribute our tools as a potential model for the development of useful products at the global level.

6 Third, the GDC should support the development of AI technology by facilitating investment in global digital infrastructure that enable organizations to exchange data in a secure manner, across sectors and borders, while ensuring data protection. In Singapore, one example is our development of the Singapore Trade Data Exchange (SGTraDex) which is a digital infrastructure that facilitates trusted and secure sharing of data between partners in the global supply chain ecosystem. SGTraDex allows connections to be made between data contributors and data users, fostering opportunities for AI innovation through data sharing and collaboration. SGTraDex is open to users worldwide, and we invite businesses around the world to utilise SGTraDex. Given the fundamental importance of data to the development of AI technology, the GDC must recognise that ensuring access to data is critical to ensuring that AI technology is accessible to all, particularly small States and developing countries. We look forward to working together with the international community through the GDC to develop additional digital infrastructure platforms for data sharing and data exchange to support the development of AI technology.

7 These are some of our initial proposals for concrete initiatives the GDC could adopt. We look forward to continuing to develop these ideas within this process. Thank you.

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