What Is the Moat?

No oil, no land, no nothing. The story we all grew up with is that our people were the resource. But honestly, it was never just we were more educated. It was more of a combo.

We could actually do the stuff. Not just book smart, but trained in whatever the factories coming in needed. They started vocational training way back in the early 60s, so by ‘65 there was already a bunch of people ready to work. Stuff also just worked. Companies came in, EDB sorted everything in one place, and things got set up fast. And people trusted us. Rule of law, stable politics, no strikes, a government that doesn’t take bribes. Still 3rd least corrupt in the world btw.

Location got the ships to sail past. Capability, efficiency and trust got them to stop. And even before AI, the neighbours were catching up on all of that.

(vocational training · why investors trusted us · corruption ranking)

And then ChatGPT spawns. Agents get better. Now being able to ‘do’ seems to be going at a discount rate faster than left-over sushi at Isetan.

When everyone has the same tools, what is the moat?

I taught at SP as an adjunct for four years. My first year was pre-ChatGPT. By my last year, everyone was using it for everything.

What I noticed wasn’t that students got lazy. It was something more annoying, and it kinda happened in three layers.

One, average is now basically free. With AI, a little effort gets you to average. You can do the thing. Not do it well, but do it. And average looks pretty decent now.

Two, the baseline dropped. If it takes almost no effort to make something that looks like it can be pushed out, then can be pushed out becomes the new bar. Doesn’t have to be good. Doesn’t have to be fact-checked. Doesn’t have to go the extra mile. So the normal amount of effort people put in quietly sinks to match.

Three, the cliff got taller. Going from average to actually good still takes real human effort. Like, a lot of it. But now you’re climbing from a way lower baseline, so the jump feels insane. And when the inertia is that high, nothing gets pushed. It’s less I don’t want to try and more eh, average is enough. Wrap up and go play.

There were a few students who pushed through did it regardless. They loved their vision. For everyone else, the bar of discomfort just… dropped.

It’s not a new thing though, that crowd always existed. When I was a student, plenty around me were on eh, this is enough mode way before AI. The difference now is their average looks really fkn good.

Effort could be the moat. But who willingly sits in discomfort?

Nobody, really. Not unless they care.

The easy answer is yes. The students who pushed through cared about what they were making. And caring is the one thing AI can’t do for you.

But zoom out to the country level and it falls apart. Singapore didn’t get ships to stop here cus we cared. Investors don’t pay for caring. They pay for results. Capability, efficiency, trust. Those were things you could see, measure, bank on.

Caring might make one person push harder. But you can’t build a nation’s edge on a feeling. You can’t put our people really care in an EDB pitch deck.

So caring might be a step. It’s just not the moat itself.

The usual answer at this point is taste. AI can’t have taste.

And I really want to believe that. I do. But… none of us were born with taste. Our taste is just a pile of our own experiences, consolidated. We saw enough things, picked up patterns, mixed them, and called the result taste.

Sure, AI on its own is an amalgamation of averages. But if you’ve worked with GenAI at any real depth, you know you can curate your own sources. Feed it the patterns you want. And what comes out isn’t even above average really. It’s more… intentional. It feels designed. Like it has a purpose.

But isn’t that what we call taste? Choosing which patterns matter?

If that’s the case, is taste even about the output anymore, or just about the choosing? And if it’s about the choosing, whose intent is it when the patterns come in curated? Mine, or the machine’s?

And the reason behind the choosing… can’t that be automated too?

Honestly, it kinda feels like we just want some level of certainty. Something that still matters. Something we can cling on to. So we push it and go yep, taste is the moat and call it a day.

Is it? I don’t know.

AI gives you the most average answer. The most conformed answer. That’s literally what it’s built to do. So maybe being different is the way out.

And I think there’s some credit to that. But not in a just go against the current kinda way. If everyone goes against the current, that’s just the new current. And being different for the sake of being different? Not that useful either.

Some academics describe Singapore as valuing uncritical harmony. Harmony over criticality. Is that fair? And if it is, where does being different even fit?

So then… why be different? What’s the point of it?

I used to think knowing what to do was the value. Nope. Agents do things. Agents plan. That’s gone too.

The only reason my brain even went there is Simon Sinek’s Start With Why. His whole thing is the golden circle. Why in the middle, then how, then what. Most people work outside in. They know what they do, kinda know how, and almost never why. The ones that inspire flip it and start with why. People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

AI’s already eating the outside. Insanely good at the what. Getting there on the how. So is the why the last ring standing?

Or is it just the ring that hasn’t been eaten yet? Can the reason behind the doing be automated too?

And if why is the moat… what’s Singapore’s? Is it survival? Tiny red dot, no hinterland, no resources. LKY once said a consciousness of innate vulnerability has promoted a culture of competitiveness. When National Education launched in ‘97, its goal was national cohesion, the instinct for survival and confidence in the future. So was survival our why all along?

MOE’s also got its own circle. The 21st Century Competencies framework. Core values in the middle, social-emotional skills around that, then thinking, communication and global literacy on the outside. Does that mean we already start with why?

Or are those values more of a how? And what actually gets graded, the middle or the outside? Does the centre still count as the centre if it’s not what we measure?

And if survival was the why… does it still work when we’re not scrambling anymore? Or does the why need to change?

(start with why · survival in our schools · MOE's rings)

Is school still mostly about the what? It’s not like nobody tried. Back in ‘97, Thinking Schools, Learning Nation pushed critical thinking. They even changed how humanities got marked, grading levels of understanding instead of just right answers. So why does it still feel like the what? Was it cus the push was mostly for the economy? Or does critical thinking just turn into another formula once you put it in a syllabus?

On paper we keep moving. Fewer exams, less streaming, a softer PSLE. But the culture around it hasn’t caught up. The system says find your passion. Everything around it still says get the A.

Can a system make people care? Or can it only make room for the ones who already do?

(what TSLN tried to do)

Okay, different angle. If AI’s eating everything, maybe the moat is just what you can still do when it’s gone. Cus everyone has a baseline now. And we’re all so used to leaning on it.

Take Google or YouTube away from me and I’d honestly struggle to believe I could learn anything. I learnt Cinema 4D, After Effects, Photoshop, all off YouTube tutorials as a kid. Pretty much everything I’ve learnt outside school came from stuff like that.

But I still had to find the info. Organise it. Go through the pain of actually making the thing. That was where the learning happened. That’s where the confidence came from.

Now agents do the research, figure out the how, and just spit it out.

So what happens when the subscription gets too expensive? Or the service just goes down? Are we left useless?

I’ve kinda been there.

For Mindpeek, we wrote a bunch of code across a few languages, some of it with ChatGPT’s help. The Singapore Art Museum run went great, so Hong Kong PolyU wanted us over.

We flew in, set up, and it fell apart. Multiple 4K screens, and the code needed serious optimising. We had no clue how. ChatGPT doesn’t work there, and we were so stressed we didn’t even think of a VPN.

So we sat through the night and figured it out. Two PolyU technicians stuck around with us the whole time, helping make it run better. Those two dudes were the godsend that made the whole thing work.

When the tool’s gone, what’s left? The skill you built? Or the people around you?

Honestly? I’m not sure we ever really had one. Everyone keeps saying taste is the moat. A designer’s value is their taste. But nothing we just went through really holds up.

And slop isn’t new. Content farms were churning out low-effort stuff way before AI. There were always people who didn’t think things through and just pushed stuff out. Now we’ve got meat proxies, people who take whatever AI spits out and just pass it on. Same laziness, new tool.

But the studios I looked up to, Ordinary Folk, ManvsMachine, never stood out cus of their tools. They stood out cus they cared a lot about why they were doing what they were doing.

Maybe that’s the point though. Singapore’s moat wore down the moment the neighbours caught up. Every moat does. So maybe the better question is what you keep choosing to dig.

Remember the why ring? And how caring alone wasn’t enough? Maybe it’s both together. Intent. Not taste. Not polish. The why, plus actually meaning it. AI can generate a reason. It can’t mean it. So if anything keeps you from sinking, maybe it’s that. And the hope is that when something’s made with intent, people feel it, even if they can’t point at it.

The clearest time I did it on purpose? Secondary school. I was terrible at Principles of Accounts. So I told my teacher, nah, I’m not studying for this. In her class I’d work on my sciences and D&T instead. Got A’s for those. And got a solid F for POA.

I'd rather fail on purpose sounds stupid to say. Especially here. But it's okay to fail really badly at some things if it means your effort goes where you actually mean it. Which brings it back to school. Can a system built on survival and getting the A ever make room for an F on purpose? Should it?

Btw, funny thing, the pixel bat all over this site started there. It’s the POA devil. I didn’t study for my prelims, so I drew it all over the foolscap paper. My teacher was pissed, and rightfully so. But I kept drawing it on every POA paper and homework, and it just… stuck.

And look, I’m not saying I’ve got it figured out. We’re all just floating anyway. Every generation felt uncertain while living through it. Even the giants like Google are floating, they’re just so big most people inside don’t feel the weight. The ones running it do.

So this is just where I’ve landed. That intent is the moat. For now. Ask me again in a year or two and I might have a different answer.

And picking where your effort goes means picking what gets the F. That part’s scary.

Be afraid. Do it anyway.