Globally competitive talent

I want to see our country level up with regards to tech, with regards to the things we learn, with regards to the qualifications we get outside, with the moment we leave university. For example...I have a friend [here] with patents...how can we make it so that the Philippines can have people like this out of university? How can we make it so that we actually have published research papers when we leave university. Actually...most research papers that we graduate with don't get published, right. But I don't think that's the same here [in Singapore]...So, like I said, I have a friend with more research papers than the [professors] that were teaching me. Like, what does that tell us? We're so far behind. So I wanna see our education system get lifted up in such a way that we can come up with the same outputs as the rest of these countries that we're actually at par with them.

[A problem most early adopters will] probably...run into is what I would call friction against tradition, because say...if the rest of the environment is still moving slowly, and you're the fastest to move, you're gonna run into friction. That's physics. Yeah so you can get hurt by running against the flow faster than how everyone else is running. So, what does that mean from a practical standpoint? It means that if you plan to be some sort of a trailblazer or an innovator, there's a lot of hand holding and communication that you need to do on top of what you are doing -- in a way, over explaining yourself. Like what I'm doing...just by being one of the noisiest people in AI, I have to double up on explaining why I have to do it.

...[Tech would be] giving people more skills, or [upgrading] our skills, because I feel [that] if people have [the required] skills, they can command the wage...then that would help [our economy], because...we're already exporting people, right? Like [Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs)] and [business process outsourcing (BPO) employees], but they don't really command as high of a wage. So I'm hoping that...technology could create more skills...so that these people could command more money, like command higher paychecks. Because...it's hard to just give people free money, because that means the government needs to print more money. Then we get inflation, which is what's happening right now. But I also feel like if we just have a lot of...goodwill charity things...it's not really sustainable, because then people would just be waiting for...the charity to come...you just gotta give people the skills so that they can command higher pay... I feel like the issue now is [that AI exists], so it's [all about] finding skills that only people could do...I guess an example would be...maybe engineering would be a good skill to have, like software engineering. Because then people could build the AIs for everyone else...

[W]here we could probably do better is in terms of investments, innovation because there's no avenue right now to get investments, you just have to borrow money from a friend...something like that. There's no venture capital, there's a very non-existent start-up ecosystem...or you could go to DOST and get a grant from the government drop in the bucket. Unlike in like hyper economies like the UK and the US, you literally write a drawing on a napkin and you'll get half a million dollars, you know. They're...suffering from the opposite problem. Mediocre ideas are getting funded there. Here [in the Philippines], it can be an above average concept and you're barely raising money. So I feel now that...I don't know how to do it. Maybe we need to do a life hack there, and that applies across the board. Like you, you're gonna be in communication. What are the odds you'll be able to publish a movie? Never. Maybe Indie. If always Indie, why can't we have like mainstream good movies, right, that don't follow the formulas? Nothing [happens because] no one wants to take a risk. So that's why the plight of scientists, entrepreneurs, artists...[they're the] same, [including] writers. These are all the creative fields, they're all languishing. Because there's no investment in the economy happening...and that's why a lot of our brilliant fellowmen end up flying out and crafting better careers abroad anyway.

[One way we can address AI's challenges and promote its development is through education]...we need to just to expose it to everyone as many [Filipinos] as possible. And 99% would be happy just knowing, and then there'll be 1% or so who would wanna rise up and try to be more effective with it.

I hope the education system would be reformed by then thanks to technology, since we have a lot of information available now...which sounds kind of scary, because it might take teachers' jobs away. But I'm hoping that there could be a way where teachers and technology could co-exist and [raise]...the standards of education in the Philippines, because if you look at the world rankings, we're near the bottom, which kind of sucks. I think [this is] especially [seen in]...standardized testing [in] math and science...like we're not up there with our neighbors...like Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. Can you believe [it]? It's like the countries next to us are [the ones on top:] Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, and we're just there [at the bottom]...I don't know, it's like kind of hard...I feel like it's not that [Filipinos] are not good, it's just that there's so little resources being pumped into education. Like people just don't see it as an important thing, and even the government [acts the same way]...I guess they'd rather funnel their resources somewhere else...