Singapore’s Foreign Minister, Dr Balakrishnan casually explaining how he built his own AI agent (a 2nd brain for diplomacy) using Claude & WhatsApp integration etc. on a Raspberry Pi “You cannot govern a technology you have only been briefed on.” 🇸🇬

This clearly demonstrate why Singapore leads, if you have a savvy minister doing this, u can tell how serious is the government of Singapore is educating, implementing and deploying AI to all Singaporeans. This is a lesson for the rest of the world.

"You cannot govern a technology you have only been briefed on." That quote alone should be in every board deck. A head of government who actually built the thing. Most C-suites won't even demo it. Gap is getting embarrassing.

So unfathomably based. I’m trying to copy his method to make my own

a foreign minister running Claude on a Pi clears the bar for most enterprise AI strategy leads I've met. those guys deliver decks.

I am not sure you can govern a technology if you’re too personally invested in it, it also introduces a bias.

That quote is exactly right. The gap between “briefed on AI” and “actually built something with it” is massive. You understand the constraints differently once you’ve fought the toolchain yourself.

a foreign minister hacking on a pi is the most singapore sentence ever written

It was remarkable to watch the Minister discuss his @NanoClaw_AI setup. A truly knowledgeable, curious and wise leader.

Most corporate exec shill are still on the "AI is a blackbox" narrative, good for Singapore they have a Minister or at least one of their Ministries are taking a hands-on approach even if he's just the vessel to deliver the message.

No-one concerned that a foreign affairs minister of a country sharing his thoughts, transcripts, questions and so on with 3rd party cloud software like whatsapp and claude? An intelligence agencies dream. And don’t be naive thinking this stuff is encrypted…

Built something similar solo last month for personal RAG over my own debug logs and commit history. The Raspberry Pi setup worked fine until token costs on long context sessions forced me to add a cheap local embedder first cut my monthly spend by ~60% while keeping the agent loop tight.

Super impressive that he found such an obscured memory system in Mnemon. Just took a look at it - alot of things I can integrate/learn for my system. Its actually written by MIT. Impressive complexity/technical prowess to even conceptualize how to integrate and make his system work. His likeability +1 for me now. Though i still largely dont like his foreign policies. LOL

Meanwhile, Google CEO had to remind a US Congressman that iPhones are made by a different company Apple.

You should also have a look at what the President of Pakistan Dr. @ArifAlvi developed

Exactly true. You only learn by doing and every politician should start using AI way more before regulating it

Scratching the surface with that approach - at least he bothered to be interested!!! Singapore lead in many ways. Meanwhile a bunch of western leaders only bother with getting “theirs” very frustrating…

This would be hilarious if it wasn't incredibly dangerous and stupid for the Singaporean people

How do you "built his own AI agent"? Or should I ask AI?

Zero chance of anything useful from U.K. Foreign Sec, let alone Milibrain who determines energy policy. Human brain runs on about 20 watts, but Uniparty manages on a single milliwatt, and even that is seemingly devoted to treasonous acts and fiddling expenses.

Great vid. Highly recommend.

This is striking. A senior minister building his own second brain on basic hardware shows what hands-on engagement with AI actually looks like.

Brilliant. I run my own shadow personal AI at home on my Mac + Telegram + Qwen + Claude

The first time I read foreign minister and raspberry pi in the same sentence. Sign of the time, I guess.

This is why sandboxes beat consultation papers. You learn by building, not being briefed. The jurisdictions pulling serious fintech capital understand this. The ones losing it don't.

And yet most people in other countries will say Singapore is successful because it is a small city state. Singapore is so prosperous despite being so small and void of natural resources, thanks to max competence.

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If leaders are going to responsibly regulate technology, they have to ‘get in the reps’ of how that technology actually applies. We can’t afford a ‘Senator, we sell ads’ moment for AI. Fortunately, people (like eg @nukebarbarian) are laying the groundwork.

there's nothing to be proud of,,,it simply means the FM of the Republic of Singapore is currently run by a company based in California,,, pathetic

Does Singapore accept immigrants from the United States? Asking for a friend.

"We are not likely to be at the frontier of model development. But we can be at the frontier of deployment at scale."

Being in politics too long makes him A Pro in Long winded of nothingness

trying to humble brag, this is not rocket science bro everyone can do it if they ask their AI properly.

watched and amazing

Agreed.

ByteDance just raised AI infra spend 25% to $28B this year. That is the kind of scale that makes 'build to govern' a practical necessity, not a philosophy.