Singapore: AI now 'actor in its own right' in warfare
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- Joseph Leong, Singapore's Permanent Secretary for Defence, told the 4th Digital Defence Symposium on Jul 20 that technology has shifted from 'just a tool' to an 'actor in its own right,' giving rise to more powerful digital weapons in a time of increased uncertainty and contestation.
- Leong cited Anthropic's Mythos and OpenAI's GPT-5 as frontier models driving the shift, saying 'what once took months and teams can now be done in minutes by a single individual' as AI systems evaluate, decide and execute at machine speed.
- Singapore, as the incoming 2027 ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting chair, will work with ASEAN defence establishments to build consensus on collectively implementing the 11 United Nations Group of Governmental Experts (UN GGE) cyber norms for responsible state behaviour in cyberspace.
- Singapore will host the inaugural ASEAN Regional Cyber Exercise on the sidelines of the 5th Digital Defence Symposium and strengthen the ADMM Cybersecurity and Information Centre of Excellence (ACICE) as an 'open and inclusive cyber and information node' for the bloc.
- Leong warned that 'information warfare has become a permanently operating front' and that falsehoods are being weaponised to erode trust in institutions, with the lines between peace and conflict, military and civilian, and state and non-state actors becoming increasingly blurred.
- Leong cautioned that 'machines cannot carry responsibility — people and institutions must,' framing human accountability as the core constraint on military AI adoption, and urged that the symposium not become a 'talk-shop.'
- The symposium at Raffles City Convention Centre is co-hosted by ACICE and the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, drawing more than 300 senior defence officials, academics and industry experts from 35 countries.
Why it matters: Singapore is using its platform as incoming 2027 ADMM chair and host of the first ASEAN Regional Cyber Exercise to position itself as the convening power for military AI and cyber norms across Southeast Asia. Leong's explicit naming of GPT-5 and Mythos signals Singapore wants the bloc's rules written around current frontier-model capabilities, not abstract principles, with over 300 officials from 35 countries already in the room.
