An SG Intern Was Told to 'Just Use ChatGPT' — and the AI Workplace Debate Flared Up Again

Ask a Singaporean professional whether AI has become an unwritten job requirement and you will get very different answers depending on generation and industry. A viral Reddit thread this week has brought the question to the surface again: an intern at a global multinational company said he was "snubbed" at work for doing his tasks the traditional way, after his manager looked at his screen and told him he would never finish on time if he did not use AI. A colleague then proudly showed off a document written with ChatGPT, telling him to do the same.

The intern, posting on the r/SGExams subreddit, said he had been tasked with preparing documents and PowerPoint presentations for his manager, and had believed he was making good progress with his own methods. The exchange left him asking a question that is becoming a rite of passage for young workers here: "Is this how things work?" The responses split along familiar lines. Several commenters told him to adapt — that using AI is simply part of company culture now, and that refusing to do so in a paid job is a fast track to being unemployable. Others pushed back hard, arguing that outsourcing thinking to ChatGPT produces exactly the kind of "slop" that degrades work quality, and that workers should take pride in what they produce.

The story is anecdotal, but it captures a real transition playing out across Singapore workplaces. Adoption has moved past the experimental phase: surveys this year have found rising shares of Singaporeans using AI for everything from financial decisions to routine office work, and companies from banks to government agencies are actively prodding employees to integrate generative AI into daily workflows. What is still being negotiated is the etiquette and expectation around it — whether AI fluency is a baseline skill like email, whether refusing it is a career risk, and where the line sits between working smarter and outsourcing judgment.

The generational friction is the sharpest edge. Older managers increasingly assume AI use is the default way of working, while younger workers — the supposed digital natives — are sometimes the ones pushing back on quality and authenticity grounds. That inversion is visible in the thread's most defensive replies, which read like a counter-manifesto to the productivity-first culture: duty of care, pride in output, and a warning that portfolios built on AI-generated work may not survive contact with a discerning employer.

Why it matters for Singapore: As Singapore pushes its National AI Strategy and companies embed AI into hiring and performance expectations, the intern's question is the practical version of a policy debate: what happens to the people who can't or won't use these tools? The answer forming in workplaces and forums alike is that AI fluency is becoming a baseline expectation, and the burden is shifting onto workers to keep up. For job seekers and young professionals in Singapore, the thread is a useful, if uncomfortable, preview of what the working world now assumes — and a reminder that the quality-vs-speed debate around AI is far from settled.