Tech Stories

Issue #61

Hello Reader,

This weekend, Singapore turned 60. As a Singaporean who's lived here my entire life, the milestone prompted some introspection: what will the next 60 years look like?

The next 60 years

As I wrote on Saturday, continued progress isn't guaranteed. In fact, what lies ahead is arguably tougher than anything Singapore has faced before.

This isn't hyperbole. Water and energy security were tackled through perseverance and good old-fashioned engineering. We built NEWater plants and desalination facilities - hard problems with concrete solutions. But the energy transition, sustainable data centres, and AI are different beasts entirely.

How do you build sustainable data centres when the technology is barely out of the lab? How do you transition to clean energy with no natural resources?

These questions were on my mind when a senior data centre executive shared an insight over coffee recently about how Singapore achieved exceptionalism. "Do better. Screw up less," he said. Ok, he didn't actually put it quite that way, but he was describing how Singapore got here - by doing things better and making fewer mistakes.

That formula still holds for the next 60 years. But "screwing up less" can't mean near-flawless execution anymore. When you're inventing new pathways, perfection is the enemy. It means accepting that the road won't be perfect - and being okay with looking wrong until we're right.

Which brings me to my birthday wish for the nation: let's get comfortable with calculated risks and imperfect first attempts. Because in a world where the rules are still being written, playing it too safe might be the biggest mistake of all.

"I'm worried about my job"

OpenAI's demo of GPT-5 building an email app.

Had dinner with a doctor and a judge yesterday evening. Both agreed that AI will upend everything as we know it. Even the specialist is worried about his job.

He told me about a patient with serious but unusual symptoms who was referred to him. After their consultation - which didn't yield a clear diagnosis - the patient went home and fed his symptoms into multiple AIs. The conversation had helped clarify his condition, so he knew what to ask. He then sent the outputs back to the doctor.

The doctor agreed with the AI's conclusion. What's more, it correlated across multiple AIs.

If patients are getting better answers from AI than from specialists, what does that mean for the rest of us? Between demos of GPT-5 building email apps and stories like this, cost of living suddenly seems like the least of our problems.

Here's what I'm doing to adapt:

Stay curious and keep learning.
Combine skills in ways AI can't easily replicate.
Leverage AI tools whenever possible.

The kicker: the doctor still has the medical training to know which AI outputs make sense. But if he's not the one using the tools, how long until that advantage disappears?

What about you? What are you doing to stay ahead?

As always, you can reach me by replying to this email.

Regards,
Paul Mah.

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