Singapore developing software with ChatGPT-like features for public sector
The government is also exploring the use of AI to enhance digital services for citizens
THE Singapore government is building a suite of productivity tools for the public service that can help with writing and coding, similar to the popular chatbot ChatGPT.
Called Pair, the software suite is being developed by the Open Government Products team under GovTech, Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information Janil Puthucheary said on Tuesday (Jul 18) morning.
He was giving the opening speech at the STACKx Data & AI conference, held at the Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Pair has been under development since January, and now has 4,000 registered users. It is powered by large language models (LLMs), the same class of artificial intelligence (AI) models that underpin chatbots such as ChatGPT.
Pair allows “the secure and efficient use of LLMs as a writing assistant within the government development space”, Dr Puthucheary said, adding that it can also provide coding support and even “a sparring partner for ideas”.
The software comes with heightened security arrangements, in collaboration with Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service, to ensure that sensitive information can be input without data retention.
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“It seems to be working well with the early adopters within the public service, and we hope to be able to make it available soon to all of our agencies,” Dr Puthucheary said.
Separately, he said the government is exploring the use of AI to enhance digital services for citizens.
For instance, it is in the early stages of experimenting with LLMs to personalise searches on SupportGoWhere, an online platform where citizens can look up government services and support schemes.
If the government gets this right, citizens “will be able to express their personal story” and be linked to the right schemes and services that match their needs, said Dr Puthucheary.
Both Pair and the enhanced SupportGoWhere platform are part of the first tranche of AI use cases by the government, with a view to scale impact and improve productivity and efficiency.
The government is also focused on equipping public officers with an understanding of AI. Its data literacy programme, ePrimer, has been refreshed to include an introduction to generative AI, LLMs and prompt engineering.
The programme has been made publicly accessible via GovTech’s developer portal.
Partnerships are another big focus. The government has had early access to some of the latest capabilities of OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, enabling it to experiment with building plug-ins. Singapore also recently launched an AI partnership with Google Cloud to build and use generative AI applications.
That said, the government is mindful of AI’s risks, requiring “a stringent testing process on the accuracy” before any LLM products are deployed, said Dr Puthucheary. Public-facing applications will have an even higher threshold to meet before beta testing.
Dr Puthucheary emphasised that it is important for the public service to keep pace with the rapid rate of AI innovation. Tools such as Pair are “not quite the paper clip from Microsoft Office, we’ve moved on a few generations”, he noted.
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