AI can narrow inequality, if rolled out well: Indranee

Singapore's Budget outlines national AI Missions, a new National AI Council chaired by PM Wong, and free access to premium AI tools for workers who upskill. AI can narrow inequality, if rolled out well: IndraneeSign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inboxTham Yuen-CSummarySummaryIndranee Rajah stresses that AI must be accessible to all, especially lower-income families, and used ethically, to prevent exacerbating social inequality.Singapore's Budget outlines national AI Missions, a new National AI Council chaired by PM Wong, and free AI tools for workers who undergo SkillsFuture courses.The Budget also enhances ComLink+ and pre-school subsidies to support lower-income families, with the aim of bridging income and wealth gaps.AI generatedPublished Feb 16, 2026, 04:10 PMUpdated Feb 16, 2026, 04:10 PMSINGAPORE - As Singapore moves to harness artificial intelligence (AI) for its next bound of development, all Singaporeans, especially those from lower-income families, must have access to the technology and be well educated on how to use it, Second Minister for Finance Indranee Rajah said on Feb 16.If deployed intentionally, AI can be a great social leveller, Ms Indranee said at a post-Budget edition of The Usual Place podcast that followed Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s Budget statement on Feb 12.Among the key announcements in the record $154.7 billion Budget was a set of national AI Missions to spur the technology’s adoption in key sectors of the economy, and the establishment of a new National AI Council chaired by PM Wong to drive this agenda.Asked by The Usual Place host Natasha Ann Zacharia if vulnerable groups may be left behind amid Singapore’s AI push, Ms Indranee said AI has the potential both to reduce inequality, or to worsen it.“It could exacerbate it if we are not careful and we’re not intentional about the way we roll it out, but it can be a great leveller if we do it right,” she said.Part of this is ensuring that Singaporeans are taught from an early age how to use AI ethically, morally, and thoughtfully, rather than to rely on it for answers, said Ms Indranee.““The last thing you want is AI substituting human judgment, human discernment, and human thought,” she said.Acknowledging workers’ anxieties about being displaced by AI, Ms Indranee said a good way to channel these concerns is to think about how to improve one’s skills to better do a job in an AI-enabled world.That is why Budget 2026 will see the Government provide six months’ free access to certain premium AI tools for workers who go for selected SkillsFuture courses, she said.Asked if the Government has a sense of how many jobs will be redesigned or made redundant due to AI, Ms Indranee said is is too early to tell, but this was one reason why the National AI Council was set up: to provide strategic direction and identify the sectors that Singapore should invest in and build up.Besides the minister, the panel included Singapore Management University assistant professor of political science Nathan Peng, and Mr Gunasekharan Chellappan, who is co-chair for the AI, cloud and data chapter of SGTech, an industry body previously known as Singapore IT Federation.Mr Gunasekharan noted that AI has been around for the longest time, but in the past it was only accessible to those who knew programming.What has changed with generative AI is that it has become a lot simpler such that anyone, regardless of professional background and income, can learn and use the technology.Incorporating AI into education would thereby be a great leveller of inequality, “making it easier for lower-income, middle-income families to be able to cross the divide”, he said.Prof Peng agreed that AI has made certain aspects of education a lot more accessible, but added that it comes with a “tinge of inequality” as parents with better skills and education are better able to guide their children on the use of AI.Some in the lower- to middle-income groups may also feel they are not in as good a position to capitalise on the advantages that AI can bring, and they therefore feel vulnerable, he added. Ms Indranee said Singapore has been in this position of major technology change before, citing examples such as email, smartphones and digital payments. In the same way that the Internet spawned a data analytics industry, Ms Indranee said AI might well create new jobs that are unimaginable today, she added.Reducing inequalityAnother key priority in this year’s Budget was support for lower-income families, such as through enhancements to the ComLink+ scheme.Prof Peng said while wages for the lower-income groups and middle-income groups have gone up and Singapore’s macro numbers are “very sound”, those in these groups do not always feel that their lives have improved as much as their rising wages.This is because those who have more resources have poured even more into giving their children a leg-up, he added.Ms Indranee said these are fair concerns, and the Government has in place the necessary measures to close the income and wealth gaps.“What we have in place are all the building blocks for this. It’s a question of ho