Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly changing the lives of everyday Singaporeans. In the latest Smart Nation development, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Heng Swee Keat announced on Wednesday (Nov 13) that the nation will embark on a "national AI strategy" that plans out ways it will develop and use AI technology. The plan will consist of five "National AI" projects as a start. These will be employed in the sectors of logistics, healthcare, border security, estate management and education management. These sectors were chosen as they have high social and economic impacts, said the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO) in a statement.

For private companies and government agencies trying to track peoples' movements, technology is making the task increasingly easy. Facial recognition and analysis are becoming increasingly popular surveillance tools – the technology was rolled out in airports across the world this summer as a tool for verifying flyers' identity, and is widely used by police departments for tracking suspected criminals. Privacy-minded activists and lawmakers are now hitting back at facial recognition. The technology has been banned for law-enforcement purposes across California, and a similar bill is being weighed in Massachusetts. Meanwhile, artists and researchers have begun to develop clothes designed to thwart algorithms that detect human faces.