Singapore announces efforts to further strengthen AI governance

Nurdianah Md Nur
2-min read

The efforts aim to help build trust in AI-enabled products and services.

Singapore will further strengthen artificial intelligence (AI) governance to help build trust in AI-enabled products and services.

“If [AI] risks are not mitigated, businesses and consumers alike may find it difficult to trust the AI-enabled products and services. Without a foundation of trust, support for AI innovations could diminish over time. It could even grow into pushback that would one day result in a standstill. Singapore’s response to these challenges is to be proactive, protective, and pragmatic,” says Josephine Teo, Minister of Digital Development and Information, at the opening of the Personal Data Protection Week 2024 earlier today.

Firstly, Singapore will introduce a set of Safety Guidelines for Generative AI Model Developers and App Deployers, which will be part of the AI Verify framework. The guidelines establish a baseline, common standard through two priorities: transparency and testing.

In terms of transparency, developers and deployers are recommended to inform users how the generative AI models and apps work, such as the data used, the results of testing and evaluation, and the residual risks and limitations that the model or app may have.

“This is like when you open a box of off-the-counter medication. There is a sheet of paper telling you about how this medication is supposed to be used, and what are the side effects that you may face. This level of transparency will be needed for AI models built using generative AI – that’s the recommendation,” says Teo.

The guidelines will also outline safety and trustworthy attributes that should be tested before the deployment of the models or applications. This will address issues such as hallucination, toxic statements, and bias content. The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) will start consulting the industry on these guidelines to ensure they are relevant and robust

Secondly, Singapore will release the Proposed Guide on Synthetic Data Generation to help businesses make sense of synthetic data and provide best practices in creating synthetic data. Generating synthetic data creates realistic data for AI model training without using the actual sensitive data. It is a form of privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) that help businesses optimise the use of data without compromising personal data.

Finally, the Asean Guide on Data Anonymisation will be released next year to provide guidance to businesses in the region looking to anonymise data for greater and more responsible use of data.  “As Chair for the Asean Digital Ministers Meeting in 2024, Singapore has also been working within Asean to facilitate data governance and convergence in the region. By doing so, we hope to cultivate a better environment for Asean businesses to operate seamlessly across borders,” adds Teo.

See Also: