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SINGAPORE: Safeguards put in place by frontier artificial intelligence (AI) companies are important but insufficient to address the risks posed by increasingly capable systems, said Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo on Friday (Oct 2).<\/p>\n
In a Facebook post, Mrs Teo said malicious users could misuse increasingly powerful AI to cause harm, such as by looking for weaknesses in computer systems, writing malicious code, automating parts of cyberattacks and making scams more convincing.<\/p>\n
Such safeguards include filtering content that could facilitate harm, limiting what AI models can access and do, testing models before release, verifying users, detecting misuse and suspending accounts that break their rules.<\/p>\n
“These safeguards are important, but insufficient. Malicious users can still turn to openly available models that can be downloaded and run independently by anyone, making it easier to bypass safeguards and hide misuse,” said Mrs Teo.<\/p>\n
“At the same time, as AI becomes more capable of acting on our behalf, deliberate misuse is not the only concern. An AI system could also misunderstand an instruction, be tricked by malicious information, or take actions that its user or developer did not intend.”<\/p>\n
Singapore therefore needs multiple lines of defence, including stronger cyber defences and a better understanding of what advanced AI systems are capable of, Mrs Teo added.<\/p>\n
Mrs Teo said many AI-related incidents today involve cyber threats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s much more we can do to prevent our systems from being easy targets of attack. We must also become better at detecting attacks and recovering when they happen.”<\/p>\n
This is especially important for government systems and essential services, where disruptions could have severe consequences for the public, she added.<\/p>\n
“We must carefully balance between convenience and security to ensure the quality of user experience does not come at the expense of effective safeguards.”<\/p>\n
Mrs Teo noted that the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) has issued guidance urging organisations to patch vulnerabilities, use strong authentication and tighten access controls to important systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Organisations can also use AI defensively, such as to identify vulnerabilities before attackers do, she said.<\/p>\n
“In other words, just as attackers can use AI, so too can defenders. Even if an organisation does not have access to the most advanced AI models, it can already use available AI tools to improve its cyber defence.”<\/p>\n
Safeguards become even more important when organisations give AI models access to their data, tools and processes, said Mrs Teo, noting that AI is increasingly being used to power agents that carry out tasks on behalf of humans.<\/p>\n
“An agent does not need to deliberately bypass its guardrails to cause harm. It might misunderstand an instruction, pursue a goal in ways its designers or users did not intend, be tricked by malicious information or simply be given too much authority or access to tools.”<\/p>\n
For example, an AI agent used for online shopping could be tricked by malicious instructions on a website into making unintended purchases or revealing personal information, Mrs Teo said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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SINGAPORE: Safeguards put in place by frontier artificial intelligence (AI) companies are important but insufficient to address the risks posed by increasingly capable systems, said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":89723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--fC974rSJ--\/c_crop,h_1110,w_1974,x_0,y_27\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/fl_relative,g_south_east,l_mediacorp:cna:watermark:2021-08:cna,w_0.1\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/10\/02\/20260828_bk_josephine_teo_1a.jpg?itok=1KAChREp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10054,4338,20059,1220,10608,13,1119,15187,14],"class_list":["post-89722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-capable","tag-companies","tag-existing","tag-grow","tag-insufficient","tag-josephine","tag-models","tag-safeguards","tag-teo","wpcat-2-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/89723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}