Simon Chesterman 陈西文

I’m thrilled that my first work of general fiction, “Artifice”, is at last available worldwide! Skip the thread and order the book here: simonchesterman.com/2023/06/30/art… Or read on! #Artifice

Further reading doi.org/10.1017/ajil.2…

Yoshua’s answer was to learn more and to feel more – to embrace curiosity and not give up on the search for expertise, but also to develop our human qualities of connection and communication. No boos to that.

That would be a real challenge for small and middle powers, where there is a strong desire to be at the table – rather than on the menu (H/T PM Mark Carney & Prof S Jayakumar).

Now that tariffs have been normalised, it’s not a big stretch to see how limiting access to models could serve economic nationalist goals as well.

from a public that is growing increasingly sceptical of AI (though less so in Singapore and China than the US and Europe).   A fascinating development is the possibility that national security starts to limit access to the most powerful models.

We’ve seen the rise and fall of export controls on chips, but on models themselves this first came up in respect of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview as a cybersecurity concern.

Successful responses need to show that responsible AI, governance, etc., operate not as stop signs but as seat belts – keeping us safe even as they enable us to drive faster. And it requires tangible benefits – and mitigation of harms –

The key challenge is how to bring about change. It’s not always clear that fear is the best motivator; many engineers warn that AI will displace or destroy us all, then get back to work.

A highlight was my chat with Yoshua Bengio on how concentrations of power risk encouraging our worst impulses in the development and deployment of AI – leading in turn to models that are duplicitous and manipulative (as they learned from the best: us).

As always, an energizing and enriching week at ATx! Presentations and conversations ranged from opportunities in healthcare to aviation, from scientific discovery to public services – with a heavy dose of governance, which was front and centre in Minister Josephine Teo’s keynote.

Colour me underwhelmed. The first great trial of the fastest moving technology in history ends because of a late filing. theguardian.com/technology/202…

I mean I'm all for encouraging class participation, but surely this goes a bit too far? washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2026…

It's behind a pay wall, but would it kill you to support journalism? Enjoy! straitstimes.com/opinion/teachi…

In today's Straits Times, Daniel Goh, Loy Hui Chieh and I write about how we hope we're doing more than teaching students not to make mistakes. Wonderful photo by another colleague, Sam Shu Qin.

What does a university owe students in a world that is increasingly unpredictable? Four years ago, we launched @nuscollege with the mission of breaking open the classroom.

(Maybe if it had been dinner and if we’d had something stronger than coffee and chamomile tea, we might have succeeded.)

Lunch with @mahbubani_k is never just lunch. When the old order frays, when great power politics is back in style – even as technology shifts power from public to private hands – few people are better company for trying to make sense of the moment.