Audrey Tang: Learning From Taiwan’s Digital Civic Experimentation

Chapter 2-2, has a very comprehensive response, saying that, and I quote, “As a decentralized, citizen-led community, vTaiwan is also a living organism that naturally evolves and adapts as citizen volunteers participate in various ways. The community’s engagement experienced a downturn following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which interrupted face-to-face meetings and led to decreased participation. The platform faced challenges due to the intensive volunteering effort required, the absence of mandates for governmental responses, and its somewhat narrow focus. In response to these challenges, vTaiwan’s community has sought to find a new role between the public and the government and extend its outreach beyond the realm of Taiwanese regulation in recent years. A significant effort to revitalize vTaiwan was its collaboration with OpenAI’s Democratic Input to AI project in 2023. Through partnerships with Chatham House and the organization of several physical and online deliberative events centered on the topic of AI ethics and localization, vTaiwan successfully integrated local perspectives into the global discourse on AI and technology governance.”