A Chinese Ghost Story star Joey Wong ‘returns’: AI doubles of veteran performers spark debate

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whether AI could extend the screen careers of actors or whether it merely reproduces their appearance without the artistry that made them famous

the remuneration is considerable and added that he did not need to directly participate in the production process.

The commercial appeal of such productions largely lies in nostalgia, retro imagery and the audiences’ emotional attachment to veteran stars’ earlier performances.....Many younger viewers may be unfamiliar with Wong or Ng, or the films that established their fame, weakening the emotional connection on which AI recreations depend

retired or veteran actors are more likely to embrace the technology than performers at the height of their careers

The greater long-term disruption may come not from authorised digital doubles of established stars, but from entirely AI-generated actors and virtual idols

for veteran actors, who receive fewer roles, saying that they could license their likeness and make decent money without having to return to demanding film shoots

the AI version of Wong had her form but lacked her spirit. “Although AI has refined Wong’s facial contours, her real appearance was far more captivating,

Qn: To what extent is artificial intelligence replacing the role of humans? (Cam. 2019)

Three self-radicalised S’pore teens detained, including 14-year-old who plotted school stabbing

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It’s getting harder to raise a boy today

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This looks like an article for parents only....but there are certain bits related to contemporary issues that are worth browsing, esp the issues faced by youth.....

‘I shouldn’t have told the joke’: David Neo on his quip in Parliament during Dear You exchange

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Qns:

1. ‘Humour is essential for an individual’s well-being.’ Discuss. (Cam. 2024)

2. Can humour ever be serious? (Cam. 2012)

AI-specific notifications mandatory for firms using personal data to train AI models: PDPC

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Qn: To what extent should governments regulate the development and use of artificial intelligence? (VJC 2026 J2 MYE)

The men embracing facelifts to get sculpted looks

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As South Korean Buddhism woos Gen Z, how hip is too hip?

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From wiggly toys to wellness bags: Meet the children turning creativity into cash

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build confidence and soft skills outside the classroom....By pricing products, speaking to customers and experiencing the realities of selling, children begin to understand the value of money and the effort behind earning it....the experience also instils crucial life skills like communication, adaptability and resilience

‘They don’t need people’: The workers left behind by China’s robot drive

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More builders look to robots to tackle Singapore’s construction labour crunch

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could ease Singapore’s reliance on foreign labour, which has been becoming more difficult to recruit and retain.

a lack of interest from locals to join the industry...The younger generation isn’t interested in this line because it is dirty, hard work. But if work is playing with robots, it might be something that attracts them

 use of robotics also reduces workers’ exposure to potentially hazardous environments...deployed drilling robots and remote-controlled robots that break concrete structures, keeping workers away from dust and vibration

robots have been able to achieve a level of precision and quality that workers cannot

the end goal is to eventually replace human beings on site, robots have to be as versatile and as agile as workers. “If I design a robot for one specific task, that is it. It may do that task extremely well, but chances are, I am not going to be able to get that robot to do something else

Qn: To what extent is artificial intelligence replacing the role of humans? (Cam. 2019)

Why AI summaries pose a danger to learning

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They take a question and swiftly return an answer, compressing what used to be a meandering journey through the internet into an immediate arrival at your destination. The explorative phase of searches – clicking through links, stumbling onto unexpected pages, following a reference that leads to somewhere unplanned – is disappearing.

By shortening the time between asking a question and getting an answer, these tools are actually undermining curiosity – and paradoxically threatening our ability to understand the world.

curiosity puts the entire brain into a mode of heightened receptivity – not just for the specific thing you want to know, but also for everything around it. Curiosity opens a window, and while the window is open, learning deepens across the board. But the window stays open only as long as the question remains unanswered. When an AI tool answers your search query in three seconds, the window closes before curiosity can deepen. You got what you came for, but you also lost what would have turned curiosity into learning: the adjacent article you might have read, the resulting tangent you might have followed, the connection between two ideas with no obvious relationship.

Scientific breakthroughs, artistic leaps, technological innovation – these rarely emerge from efficient retrieval of known information. They emerge from periods of undirected exploration, when people follow questions further than they need to and find things they weren’t expecting

Our technology is increasingly treating the territory between the query and the answer as dead space to be eliminated, when that territory is where most of the learning actually happens. 

Qns:

1. 'Our use of technology has narrowed, rather than broadened, what we experience.' Discuss. (DHS Prelim 2025)

2. ‘The most important aim of a scientist is to satisfy human curiosity about the world.’ Evaluate this view. (Cam. 2025)

As AI gets more human-like, China grapples with the cost of virtual intimacy

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