Mr Speaker,
I share the values outlined in the motion – that growth must be inclusive, that every worker matters, and that no one should be left behind in the AI transition.
Ensuring that no one is left behind involves more than ensuring job-ful growth. It requires a commitment to sharing the rewards of AI-driven productivity. It also requires us to ensure that future generations of workers can thrive in an era defined by AI and possibly, other technologies that have yet to be invented.
Sharing in the AI productivity dividend
Mr Speaker, much of the discourse about AI-driven economic transition has been focussed on the need for workers to upskill and remain relevant. While these efforts are essential, they do not answer another equally important question: how do we ensure the equitable distribution of the AI productivity dividend?
Presently, employers are the default beneficiaries. They benefit from more output from the same headcount, or the same output from a lower headcount. Such productivity gains do not automatically become human gains. Without deliberate policy design, they tend to remain exclusively employer gains.
One way to share the AI productivity dividend with workers is through time.
During the MOM Committee of Supply debate in March, I made a case for flexible work arrangements to be given legislative force. The right to request flexible work is not the same as the right to actually have it. We should not rely on guidelines that place the burden of action on the employee who can least afford to do so.
I would like to reiterate the call for flexible work legislation today. It has become more salient as we discuss how the AI transition can benefit Singaporeans. As AI generates real productivity gains, the question of whether Singaporean workers will share in these gains as time regained, not just higher output, is one which the market will not answer on its own. It must be designed for.
What does more time mean in practice? It means a parent who can be present, and do more than just paying for tuition classes. It means fewer caregivers having to choose between a job and a family member who needs them. It means rest - real rest - in a country where 61% of employees feel exhausted and 39% of workers dread going to work. These are not soft outcomes. They are conditions under which human capabilities are replenished and sustained.
Will the Government and tripartite movement commit to prioritising worker well-being alongside employer gains and economic growth as it shapes AI-era policy?
If so, I urge the Government to begin by giving legislative teeth to flexible work arrangements. As AI makes companies more productive, workers should have a meaningful and enforceable claim on the time that the AI frees up. Time to rest and to pursue the kind of human connection AI cannot replicate and that our fertility rate is telling us we are running short of.
AI and workers of the future
Mr Speaker, I now want to turn to a group of Singaporeans who matter most to our long-term success. If we say that every worker matters, then we must look at the workers who are not yet in the workforce. I am talking about our children in today’s classrooms.
Right now, our ten-year-olds in Primary 4 are being introduced to AI tools. While there is of course teacher supervision and guardrails in place, we should also be asking a more fundamental question: Is this early exposure building their ability to thrive in an AI world, or is it building an early dependence on AI powered tools?
Some parents are already asking: Is P4 too early? What are the real gains, and more importantly, what are the trade-offs? These are not just "parental anxieties" — they are also serious questions being asked by neuroscientists.
In his book The Digital Delusion, neuroscientist Dr. Jared Horvath makes a point that should give us pause: When technology makes thinking too easy, the depth of learning disappears. AI is the ultimate "offloading" tool. It reads, writes, and calculates with minimal user input. But our children are not yet experts looking to offload and increase productivity; they are learners. And learning requires struggle. It requires the "cognitive friction" that AI is designed to remove.
If our children start to offload their thinking at age ten, they do not develop the "mental muscles" needed to spot errors, ask meaningful questions or form independent views. What we call AI-enabled "personalised learning" then risks becoming "customised comfort"— it feels like progress because it is frictionless, but it may be short-circuiting the cognitive development we are trying to support.
This brings me to a concern that I raised earlier today: the equity paradox in AI use. I appreciate Minister Desmond Lee’s point about how MOE actively engages parents through Parents’ Gateway and shares guidance on how they can better support their children at home. But not every child in Singapore has a parent at home who is digitally engaged, has time to act on that guidance, and is equipped to scaffold their child's learning beyond what happens in the classroom.
Children from less privileged backgrounds with less access to parental guidance and fewer non-screen enrichment activities may end up leaning on AI more heavily, not less. For a child who comes home to an overstretched household — where there is no one to redirect, question, or supervise — AI will always produce an answer, always reduce the friction, always make the thinking easier. That is not empowerment. If AI dependency erodes cognitive development it is meant to supplement, then the children most at risk are the ones we are trying our hardest to support.
My colleague, Associate Professor Jamus Lim, noted during the recent Budget debate that the gap between stronger and weaker university students is no longer about what they submit in written assignments, but about their willingness to question and think beyond the script. These abilities are built – or not built – over years. If we displace that effort at age ten, our children simply cannot download it at university. And if the children doing the most unsupervised AI offloading are those who already have less of these abilities, then we are not closing that gap. We are widening it earlier.
A global study published this January by the Brookings Institution found that the biggest risk of AI in education is the displacement of effortful thinking during crucial developmental years. Interestingly, 65% of students surveyed in the study cited the undermining of cognitive development as the top risk of the use of AI. The children themselves can feel the difference.
Mr Speaker, I am not suggesting we do not use AI tools in schools. I am suggesting we follow the evidence, not the hype. Generative AI has been public for barely four years. We do not yet have long-term data on how it affects a child's brain. We should not let the speed of a technology cycle outpace the care our children deserve.
I appreciate Minister Desmond Lee’s update this morning that the Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study or SG-LEADS by A*STAR will expand to collect data that will help us understand Singapore children's AI usage patterns and how their AI usage affects their learning and well-being outcomes.
I hope this will also include the impact of using AI tools in education on our older children’s cognitive development, including their effect on their executive function and skills like critical thinking, reading comprehension and capacity for sustained, independent effort.
We must ensure we are preparing our children for a world we cannot predict, by giving them the one tool that will always be relevant: a strong, independent mind.
Conclusion
Mr Speaker,
This motion rightly calls for Singapore’s approach to AI-enabled growth to be anchored in fairness, resilience and opportunity for all. I agree.
This is why I spoke today about two critical things that the AI transition is challenging us to protect: time and mind.
For workers of today, we should legislate the right to flexible work, so that productivity gains are reclaimed as time for rest, care, and connection.
And for our children, the workers of the future, we must protect the cognitive friction necessary for learning, ensuring that we are cultivating independent minds that can solve a hard problem without reaching for a digital crutch.
The AI transition is not just an economic event. It is perhaps the most significant opportunity in a generation to ask what kind of society we will build with the time and capability that technology returns to us.
我同意动议中提到的不少事项，包括不让任何员工在人工智能的变革中掉队。不过，要实现这个愿景，也需要我们分享采用人工智能科技后带来的红利，以及确保未来世代的员工能够继续保持优势和竞争力。
目前在采用科技提高生产力后，雇主往往是获益的那一方，员工不一定会受益。
- 因此我们应该将［灵活工作安排指导原则］升级为具有约束力的政策。
- 人工智能提高生产力和效率后，我们应该让员工使用腾出的时间陪伴家人，休息，去参与活动和他人建立关系。这些都是人工智能无法取代的。
此外，未来世代的劳动队伍，也正是在校园学习的孩童，如今也开始接触人工智能。
- 有家长提出担忧：小学四年级接触人工智能，会不会有些早呢？
- 也有神经科学专家指出，过早或过多地使用科技可能会将学习变得太容易，因而导致孩童失去建立深入学习能力的机会。
- 孩童在成长阶段正需要的就是思考，不断发问并作出判断。
- 我因此呼吁政府追踪并定期报告，探讨在我国校园采用人工智能科技后，对学生认知能力的发展所带来的影响。
在人工智能时代中，独立思考和判断才是人工智能无法取代的技能。
这正是我们应该传授给下一代的，确保他们无论未来世界变化如何都能保持优势和竞争力。
