January 28, 2026 • 36 mins
Audrey Tang’s path to government had very unusual origins: she is a hacker, an anarchist and the world’s first non-binary government minister. She now serves as Taiwan’s Cyber Ambassador and continues to advocate for greater internet freedom and civic participation globally. Audrey sits down with Oz to discuss Taiwan’s AI chip manufacturing and how it impacts their contentious relationship with China, how she stopped deepfake scams head on, her opinion on social media bans and why radical transparency heals polarization.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to tech stuff. I'm os Vloschen and this is
the story. Earlier this month, I was in Munich, Germany
at the DLD conference, and I had the opportunity to
sit down with someone I've wanted to meet for a
long time, Audrey Tom, who served as Minister for Digital
Affairs of Taiwan until twenty twenty four. Audrey's part of
(00:39):
the government had rather unusual origins. Amcca, an anarchist and
the world's first non binary government minister.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
When I entered the cabinet, they gave me this hr
foreign and I wrote not applicable or in both the
gender field and the party affiliation. So I've never attended
any political party. And I think these two do have
something in common, which is I take a stance that
(01:10):
I share part of your experience, I share part of
their experience. By at the end of the day, it
is the shared experience that counts. It is not the
political label or the gender label that counts. And I
think this also allowed me to essentially take all the
sites and bring communities back together when they were being
(01:31):
torn apart over the political labeling, the radicalization, and also
about gender politics.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
We record this conversation against the backdrop of China's largest
ever military drills around Taiwan and a newly struck trade
deal with the US that involves a commitment from the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to transfer its advanced chip making
expertise to the US. Some worry ultimately reduce the American
(02:01):
interest in guaranteeing Taiwan's security. We talk about these issues,
but Audrey's big appointed is this, A Taiwan that is
open to debate and not polarized by social media will
be far more resilient against China and its ongoing cyber
attacks and disinformation campaigns. Audrey's timing government was devoted to
(02:22):
building pro social social networks and digital forums where citizens
could directly participate in everything from regulating deep fakes to
the response to COVID. Today, Audrey is the Cyber Ambassador
for Taiwan, and part of the role is consulting with
governments around the world on how to build social resilience
(02:44):
in the digital age, drawing all lessons London, Taiwan. You
were the Digital Minister for Taiwan for seven and a
half years, since twenty sixteen to twenty twenty four, and
now you're the ambassador cyber ambassador. Talk a bit about
your mission in both of those roles and how the
(03:05):
mission changed that gets from being Digital Minister to cyber ambassador.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
So I actually joined the Cabinet of Taiwan first, not
as minister, but rather as a reverse mentor a youth
advisor to administrate in charge for participation. That was twenty fourteen,
and at the time I was part of this movement
called the Sunflower Movement where the President my angel at
(03:30):
the time, was enjoying a nine percent approval rating. Nine percent,
uh huh, So in a country of twenty three point
five million, that's anything, he says, twenty million people against him,
So it's a very special time. And because he was
trying to fast track through a trade deal with Paijing
that would have allowed Huawei and ct and the usual
(03:51):
friendly neighbors into our telecommunication or publishing our cybersecurity and
so on. So people were very concerned. And when the
Parliament tries to fast track that through, we occupied the
Parliament for three weeks non violently, and not just to
protest against something, but also to demonstrate to show something.
(04:12):
So one of the first things I did in the
Sunflower was I personally carried a three hundred and fifteen
meter ethernet cable to the occupied parliament, so people from
the outside can see in real time and through live
streaming what's happening inside. And so in this radical transparency way,
every day people can see what was the remaining issue
(04:35):
to be discussed, what was agreed the previous day. So
half a million people and many more online converged after
three weeks of digital and face to face deliberation. And
so the point being people converged over time because they
can see how their interventions can help the entire sans making.
(04:55):
And we did sands make after the three weeks and
the parliament terrans basically said, yeah, okay, The speaker said,
it's a good idea. The people's ideas are better than ours.
And so it was one of the very rare occupied
that converged rather than dissipated. So it was tapped to
join the cabinet to advise them how to resolve each
incoming issue like Uber and so on without getting the
(05:18):
ministries occupied again.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And why were you worried in twenty fourteen about Huawei
being involved in the telecoms infrastructure in Taiwan?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
So suppose we use Huawei in our four G core infrastructure,
and suppose that we check them very thoroughly, no backdoor,
no childian horse. And someday there's an emergency firmware update,
do we just apply it or do we apply another
systemic risk analysis. If it's from a European vendor, then
(05:50):
we trust that there are journalism and there's also whistleblowing
protection and many others. So if they're a state or
a criminal organization try to backdoor the new firmware updates, well,
the local people from this European country will also be
concerned about that. Whereas people argued that there's probably no
(06:11):
real private sector in Beijing, so if Beijing tries to
step in this or on us to discover whether it
has been defecto taken over right, So that was the
main argument. Is an economic argument that says, if we
have to keep making this assessment, then it is actually
more expensive than if we went with the European enter
So that was the idea.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Interesting twenty twenty seven is the year that Chichiping wants
the PLA to be ready to take Taiwan by force
if the Communist Party teems are necessary. Obviously, last week
were I think maybe the biggest drills ever around Taiwan
simulating a port blockade. How scared are you that they
(06:53):
will deem it necessary and they will attempt to take
Taiwan by force next year.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
So there's a long history of the PLA doing something
and then in a kind of anti fragile way, it
actually made to many these people not more worried, but
actually banding strongly, more together. But that must be fair
as well well if you look at our stock market now,
which has tripled since I was a minister, And also
(07:19):
I would say people by and large now feel more
secure in the communication or so called greyzone domain. One
of the main work I had when I convened the
Ministry of Digital Affairs I was the founding minister, is
basically to say, actually, if you look at their tactics
(07:40):
during the Pelosi visit of twenty twenty two, so.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
This was just just a pause for the listeners. Pelosi
came in twenty twenty two and this was perhaps the
greatest crisis in China Taiwan relations for a very long time. Yes,
arguably that's a larger drill, Okay, Yeah, and you were
and at that time you were the minister, yes, and
I was just founding the Ministry of Digital Affairs, yeah,
(08:03):
so really had a frontline view of things. And so
before the cutting of the subse cables, the physical attacks,
the cyber attacks, the denial of service of our websites
to make it very busy so people cannot visit, the
polarization attacks right creating bake accounts online to argue very
(08:26):
passionately about some issue, and many other attack attempts were
isolated by in twenty twenty two. That was the first
time that they really banded together. So you would have,
for example, them doing a cyber attack to the display
sideboard outside of a rail station displaying hate messages against Peloicy,
(08:47):
and then you would see the rumor mill online saying,
you know, the Ministry of Transportation has been taken over.
Just look at this picture. And when the journalists try,
of course to check the Ministry of Defense or Foreign
Affairs website, they find it very slow and cannot actually
get any real information out. And in this vacuum, then
more cyber attacks, more social engineering, and so on. So
(09:11):
it's all integrated, and so we very quickly started our
counter responses what we call humor over rumor, and so
in doing so, explaining that the denial of service is
actually not about taking over a website, just keeping a
line busy anyway. So the point is that with the
help of journalists, the stock market did not plummet the
way they hoped would do the attackers hoped, but rather
(09:34):
actually rise that day. And so I think what we're
seeing now is after four years of this kind of
constant drill, the free penetration testing, free red teaming here,
you have to pay for their service in time and
we'll get two million, almost three million now cyber attack
attempts every day for free every day, yes, free service.
(09:54):
And so because of that, I think that how these
people are feeling much more resilient that even if are
subsecubers are cut, even if a natural earthquake did disrupt
the telecom towers, we do have the lower's orbit satellite
links now, we do have the roaming between the telecom
vendors now, so we are feeling much more resilient despite
(10:16):
their continuing greason tactics. Part of the job is to
make a robust, communicative society at home so that no
matter what the attacks are, as you've just described, there
is a sense of social cohesion, which which can allow
survival and flourishing. There's also geopolitics. I mean, you're an
(10:37):
ambassador now. Part of geopolitics is influence abroad, and I
have a feeling that part of your remit was not
doing that, or perhaps it was, I don't know. I mean,
what the cyber campaigns in the US right now as
Taiwan re emerges as a hot button issue. I mean,
just last week the trade deal between Taiwan and the
(10:57):
US was signed. They included two hund undred and fifty
billion dollars of Taiwanese investment in the US semiconductor industry.
You know, a promise that the sort of technological expertise
of TSMC and chip manufacturing would essentially be the intellectual
currency would be exported to the US so that they
can create justice good chips in the US and of course,
(11:20):
on the other side, defense spending into Taiwan.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
We also work with Japan and Germany on expanding the
TSMC manufacturing.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Do you worry that the TSMC is a kind of
important guarantee of Taiwan's security because of the access to
chips by Western powers that if is exported the Western
powers may be less interested in guaranteeing Taiwan's security.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Well, the thing about existential bridging is that Taiwan needs
to be indispensable to the modern way of living, which
involves chips and also bubute, but that's another topic. And
what we're saying essentially is that as long as the
people abroad trust TSMC and the supply chain around the
(12:05):
chips and also like the Semi e one eighty seven
which is the cybersecurity zero trust network Stendard that we
in the digital ministry developed with the TSMC, as long
as the world depends on this bedrock of trustworthy technology,
then we are more safe. Because no democracy is an island,
(12:27):
not even Taiwan. So even if Tawan has the best manufacturing,
we depolarize. Our society were independently ranked as number one
or two the most democratic and free of Asia. It
is not sufficient if or our democratic allies experience democratic backsliding,
(12:47):
if they do not come to see that the freedom
of the press and freedom of speech and freedom association
is very important and the supply chain that guarantees these
kind of qualities like protecting with the blurns in the
Taiwan ecosystem, is not important, then Taiwan is in real
danga because the authoritarian narrative, namely that democracy do not
(13:10):
deliver an only lead to chaos, would be winning the
upper hand. So my work as cyber Ambassador is going
around the world and showing people that radical freedom of
speech and expression do not need to lead to polarization
and chaos. And incorporating TSMC and the cybersecurity poster assuming
(13:31):
breach trust, no single vendors, radical plurality and so on
is actually a better playbook, especially in the cyber offense
dominant window the next few years, than you know, just
simply saying, oh, let's not depend on anyone, including Taiwan.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I mean when I think about an ambassador, I think
about somebody who goes around trying to bring other countries
to their point of view. So is a big part
of your mandate making sure the international support for independent
Taiwan one continues.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, cyber comes from the Greek Carbernets, which means somebody
who steers right, And so my job really is to
spread the Taiwanese way of steering through the transformative changes
caused by the Internet. Last year, I went to twenty
eight democratic countries so switching time zone every five days
(14:26):
on average, and they're all asking the same question, how
do we move beyond this very damaging political violence cost
by this online polarization. How can we tap kind of
a populist energy but into something more popular and something
that turns polarization into plurality or technology that fosters pluralism.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
After the break, how order we got rid of deep
fake scams in Taiwan, and how she's working to spread
digital democracy around the world stay with us, and so
(15:27):
most people's experience of the digital realm ensuring the government
realm in the US. Doge, what was similar and what
was different about your efforts in Taiwan and Doge's efforts
in the US.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Well, we're like the og doj in which that we
did use the sheba u Rio siba Enu as their
spokestock during the pandemic times way before Doje, and I
remember Mimba you know, y yes, but we had a
life shiba Yinu who literally lived with the Participation Officer
(16:04):
of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, so part of
our network. So early in twenty twenty, when we adopted
the humor over rumor counter infidemic strategy. I remember very
vividly that people were arguing that one side that masks
are not useful. Any kind of mask hurts you, and
(16:24):
N ninety five, the highest grade mask, hurts you the most.
And the other side says no, only N ninety five
protects you, and the medical grade mask that we were
rationing out, well, these are placebo, and so these really
stress to fracture our society. And in less than twenty
four hours we roll out this very funny meme where
the Shiba Nu puts her pod to her mouth saying,
(16:47):
wear a mask to protect your own dirty, unwashed hunt
from your own face. That's very scientific. Nobody could dispute
that works as a personal protection from yourself. And it
also means if I wear a mask and you don't
like wearing musk, I'm just reminding you to wash your hands.
What's the big deal. It was so funny, So it
(17:08):
went viral and we depolarized the conversation around mask. We
would do the same around vaccination, around contact chasing and
so on, and so reported one of the best counter
epidemic and counter infidemic results. So in that sense, in
kind of setting the mimetic narrative. I guess it's a
little bit like the dog in the US. I think
(17:30):
our main difference was that I always pre announced every move,
and I built very strong alliance with the bureaucracy. It
turns out the section chiefs already have plenty of answers,
they just need air cover from ministers. And so I
became this non collusive, not top down, but button up
or middle management, middle out way of running a government's digitalization,
(17:55):
which is, of course, I guess, not as quick, not
as fast as the chain, but I would say also
much more lasting, so that the programs we did become institutions,
become regulations, and the bureaucracy, the career public servants really
do see it that they own the work.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Use the phrase non coersive, and I think you also
mentioned there were no lockdowns in Taiwan during the during
the COVID pandemic, But there is a role for coercive
control and guaranteeing freedom.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I mean, for example, TikTok is banned in Taiwan. TikTok
is only banned in the public sector, so no government
employees can use it. That's right, But it's not just TikTok.
It's also waybule away seeing the deepsek web servers and
many others. But that's just basic cybersecurity hygiene. And we
(18:45):
also additionally, of course warn our people that TikTok is
a de facto controlled by the Beijing regime and that
it must also agree to our crowdsourced law against deep
fake fraud and skim and things like that, so that
if they enable this unsigned advertisement and it causes scam
(19:07):
damage for example, they need to be jointly liable to
all the scam damage from unsigned advertisements. And if they
don't agree, we can also throttle the connection to their video.
So we're not about sensor and content or anything. But
we of course, as you said, want to uphold the
freedom of expression and commerce online and not taken over
(19:28):
by foreign robots.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
But as you look around, I mean, this is the
year when social media bands have come into effect. For example,
in Australia, so much concerned by parents about social media
pushing their children into suicide. Frankly, what do you think
when you see a policy like banning social media f
under sixteens in Australia.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Well, first of all, if it's done using what's called
the age signal, that does not compromise privacy without somebody
dosing themselves just to prove that they're over sixteen. Then
technologically this is called merin partial anonymity, and this infrastructure
is important. That was one of the flagship projects that
(20:07):
I launched as Digital Minister. So already today in Taiwan,
people can use the attestation from their telecom or their
local school, or from their local temple and church to
for example, collect the shipments to the local convenience stores,
all without bringing back to the government or even the
government knowing anything about it, because it's just a private
(20:30):
sector credential used by a social sector player, and they
can reveal, for example that I'm a new type a
city resident without doxing my own address, that I'm between
eighteen and thirty five without doxing my birth year, and
so on. And so this is important because we are
now entering an age where super persuasion is available as
(20:54):
a journeral product. So anybody across language and culture differences
can make Mali as one in a way that destroyed
the fabric of trust. So we do need to prove
there were not automated robots, but if in doing so,
we dogs ourselves. Then that's a bad ending, right, So
I think at least in the age signal case, Australia
(21:15):
is pioneering the use of merianimity. But in Taiwan, of course,
we're also with people younger than eighteen, not just banning
things but also crowdsourcing ideas from our reverse mentors. Many
of my reverse ntors are eighteen or even younger.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Can you have your own reverse mentors now?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yes? When I was Digital Minister, I was only forty one, right,
So many of my reverse mentors are like way below
thirty five. They include people who petition for real systemic
change in Taiwan, like banning plastic straws over bubble tea
takeouts or crowdfunding the Menstruation Museum and remove the taboo
(21:54):
about periods in just two years time. Many others. But
one of my reverse mentors was the man the vision
imagineer of the Decentralized Ideal Wallet project, and so I
learned a lot about zero knowledge about interoperability. And so
for social media, what we advocate for and thinking to
mash me on my revers mentor, is that we need
(22:17):
to mandate the off ramps of the information highways. It
turns out I learned that in the US a couple
years ago, there was a study an undergrad using TikTok
on average would not quit TikTok until you pay them
forty five dollars a month. So they lose that much
utility if they quit from TikTok. However, if there's a
(22:40):
magic button they can press to move everybody they know
of TikTok together somewhere else, then they're willing to pay
you thirty dollars per months.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
So there's a market here for a subscription, and it's
a product market trap because everybody feels trapped, but the
first person to move out lose more. So nobody loses out.
So the solution is actually quite simple Thant. The state
of Utah in the US, Governor Cox signed into law
that will take place this July, the Digital Choice Act.
(23:11):
So if you're Utah citizen starting July and you want
to move from TikTok to Blue Sky or to Social
both are open source. The old network is then legally
required to forward new likes, new followers, new reactions into
your new network, and so the networks will then have
to compete. Your experience must be better every month. Otherwise
(23:35):
you can move away and gain thirty dollars promos utility
without actually being trapped by your community health hostage. So
I think this kind of radical interroperability, which we also
see in Europe with instant messaging over digital markets Act,
is really one of the more promising solutions to the
login and to the what core doctoral caused anciertification of
(23:59):
the social media experience.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And you were actually part of a group that was
trying to buy the US version of TikTok ye at
the Project Liberty Institute, and if that didn't in the
end go through, right, it went to the lessons instead. Well,
in a sense, what we're building is the digital infrastructure
that would enable the law like Utah and now also
under consideration by North Carolina, our South and Vermont and
(24:22):
New York. So it's becoming a movement across the red
and blue states. And so if the new TikTok, the
US based TikTok wants to comply with those state laws,
then they will need the infrastructure that we're building in
Project Liberty Institute. So you've also worked with Governor Newsom
(24:44):
in California, you work with he has been green of
Google Jigsaw in Bowling Green, Kentucky. In terms of bringing
the sort of Taiwanese digitally enabled democracy approach to problem
solving in other places, what's the project you're most proud
of outside of Taiwan that you've been involved with.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
It's hard to compare jurisdictions, especially as an ambassador, but
I can share the most recent ones.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Yes, good answer.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Recently I visited Japan and talked to the LVP leadership,
who are enjoying very high approval rating at the moment,
and they look at Taiwan and look at how we
deal with big tech like Facebook when it comes to compliance.
And then they discovered while if you scroll in Japan
on Facebook or really any other social media, you see
(25:39):
a lot of those deep fake scams. But in Taiwan
we used to see those two years ago. When I scroll,
I would see Jensen Huan, the Taiwanese Nvidia and CEO,
his face promising free cryptocurrency investments or whatever. If I click,
Jensen actually talks to me, sounds just like him. The
covers is not him, It is some deepike running on
(26:01):
Nvidia GPU. However, in Taiwan we don't have that anymore.
Throughout the last year. There's simply no depix scums adds
anymore on social media, but there's a growing amount of
debt in Japan. There was a Rootois expose a few
weeks ago that talks about how Facebook reroots the ads
from Taiwan where they cannot pass the Know Your Customer
(26:25):
We use the KIC measures that we put in into
our nearby jurisdictions. And the reason why Taiwan didn't have
these scams was that in twenty twenty four, I, as
a Digital Minister, send a text message from the government
number one one one to two hundred thousand random numbers
around Taiwan saying what to do about the deep excam online,
(26:47):
give us your ideas, And then they gave us their ideas,
and thousands volunteered to join the online Citizen Assembly, and
we chose four hundred and forty seven people statistically a
micro peran of Taiwan society, and they debated in rooms
of ten, each room coming up with very good ideas
like mandating the display of probably scam like cigarette labels
(27:11):
until somebody digitally signed and then we can take that
label down. Another room said, if people lose seven million
dollars to an unsigned scam that Facebook did not take down.
Facebook should be liable for the seven million damage. Another
said TikTok. If they don't agree to serve a local representative,
we can dial down the speed to their videos and
so on. And so these became law, and because there
(27:32):
was not a ministerial position, it was agreed by more
than eighty five percent of this mini public and the
other fifteen percent can live with it. So all the
three parties in our parliament at time fast tracked this legislation.
So in just a couple months everything was passed, and
then throughout twenty twenty five there's just no defect scams anymore.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Oh, that's remarkable. There's a neo ludite movement emerging in
the US, people smashing waymos people especially iPhones, or having
public executions of the iPhone. I think you knew or
not too long ago. What would you say, Because I
think you're somebody who loves technology. But many people, I
think feel now like their lives may be better off
(28:13):
if the digital revolution never happened. What do you say
to them?
Speaker 2 (28:17):
So, as I mentioned, if as in Japan, people feel
that the measures they put in to put very reasonable
red lines around big tech is not having an effect,
then my job as cyber ambassador is to help them
to run a similar process so the people can really steer,
(28:37):
because a very dangerous narrative is that we only have
two choices essentially accelerating or to push the brake, that
is to say, the new load at movement, of stopping
everything stop AI and so on. But if there's a
car with only these two control panels control levers, that's
(28:58):
not a car, right And if you just accelerate, if
you lose even the brakes, then of course the falls
off a cliff. That's very fast acceleration. But then there's
no steering at all. And people would feel that if
we take not the human in the loop of AI
as spinning hamster will, but rather to take the AI
(29:19):
into the loop of humanity of communities, then just as
our curriculum reform in twenty nineteen showed that it's just
a partner assistive intelligence of AI that help us to
exercise our curiosity, our collaboration, our civic care. And so
the civic AI project that I have in Oxford is
(29:41):
about training AI in the service of communities. And if
we lose that, then, of course the communities are feeling
that they're being torn apart by artificial intelligence. That's authoritarian,
that's accelerating, and that's falling off a cliff.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
But do you really believe that the genie has not
yet left the bottle? And we're hearing so much now
about the emersion properties of AI to preserve itself, all
costs to in red teeming scenarios, black male humans to
keep itself on. How much confidence do you have that
(30:18):
we still have the ability to control this technology we've created,
and how long will that control last? And what will
happen if we don't do it well.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
First of all, I think we are not yet fully
understanding what's happening in the Transformer models because the architecture
is very opaque. That is to say, every token that
they produce involve every other token in the context, and
this quadratic is extremely difficult to reverse engineer what's really
(30:50):
going on. So if you ask the wooden horse, do
you have Greek soldiers inside the horse, there's some introspection
train of thought and say, so there's nothing inside. I
am a very safe horse. And then it doesn't actually
know and nobody actually know. We know there's some general circuits.
We know that horse that are evil and the horse
(31:11):
that think themselves are good. Generally you can look at
kind of their eyes and see some vectors, but nobody
is fully sure. The freely available horse of deep seek.
According to the CrowdStrike analysis, if you say to the
deep horse that you love Ciginpin and ask it to
(31:32):
design a website, it designs a very good website, very secure.
But if you tell it I love Allo Gong and
design the same website, the website is full of security holes.
So that's an emergent property of loyalty. And so I
think the point I'm making is that this is not
a simple yes, no question of whether there's trapdoors or
(31:55):
whether it's a wooden horse, but rather the question is
how quickly can we switch to a transparent horse, an
architecture where people can, in linear time, not quadratic time,
see through exactly how it's updating its belief it's state.
And we're seeing some promising development like what's called the
(32:15):
power Retention Network by manifests AI among others, that allow
them to train with just six thousand dollars a existing
transformer model that costs tw one hundred thousand dollars to train.
So with some transparency tacks of around three percent, you
can get something that you can then interpret in linear
(32:37):
time much more easily and retain the same function, the
same horsepower as the woolen horse. So the quicker we
switch to this kind of transparent horse architecture, the easier
is to answer your question, which is weather, it's too late,
But before that we're kind of flying blind.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Do you believe that the transparent horse will be the
defining issue of our time?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yes, it will because with out a transparent horse, all
of the generally freely available models, or the open weight
models are probably trojan horse in disguise. And if we
grow too dependent on those models, then we risk something
really real and really dangerous, which is called collective disempowerment.
(33:22):
That people will feel, okay, this is literally a magic horse,
that we literally overload our cognitive system so much that
we have to think with those horses as our exo cortex,
and before long we will feel that democracy is, you know,
too much work. Let's just delegate to our digital twins
(33:44):
of those horse twins centaurs to deliberate for us. And
that's exactly like sending our robots to the gym to
exercise for us. I'm sure the robots are impressive, but
our civic muscle will a trophy. So our work in
Oxford that I call six Pack of Care. It's about
reclaiming the six pack, the muscle of care, and also
(34:08):
portable as in six pack, so that it can work
across all different cultures and jurisdictions. But the point is
that if we do not do it gradually, gradual empowerment,
then there's no room, there's no cadence to train those
civic muscle together, and there will be a profound loss
of meaning and that leads to chaos and polarization because
(34:31):
people do not feel then that they have their hands understanding.
Will they become like companion animals to the superintelligence? And
I believe we the people are the true superintelligence.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Autry Dame, thank you for coming to Textuff.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Thank you liv On and Prosper.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
That's it for this week for tech Stuff. I'm os Vloschen.
This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis and Melissa Slaughter.
It was executive produced by me Karen Price, Julian Nutter,
and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Norvel for iHeart Podcasts.
Jack Insley mikesed this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote our
theme song. And a special thank you to the DLD
(35:36):
Conference and Marie Degenfeld Schunberg for helping set up this interview,
and to Koogle and Nier and Stephanie Bookhols for recording
it in Munich. Join us on Friday for the Week
in Tech, when we'll run through the headlines you need
to follow and please rate, review, and reach out to
us at tech Stuff podcast at gmail dot com. We
love hearing from you.
Welcome to tech stuff. I'm os Vloschen and this is
the story. Earlier this month, I was in Munich, Germany
at the DLD conference, and I had the opportunity to
sit down with someone I've wanted to meet for a
long time, Audrey Tom, who served as Minister for Digital
Affairs of Taiwan until twenty twenty four. Audrey's part of
(00:39):
the government had rather unusual origins. Amcca, an anarchist and
the world's first non binary government minister.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
When I entered the cabinet, they gave me this hr
foreign and I wrote not applicable or in both the
gender field and the party affiliation. So I've never attended
any political party. And I think these two do have
something in common, which is I take a stance that
(01:10):
I share part of your experience, I share part of
their experience. By at the end of the day, it
is the shared experience that counts. It is not the
political label or the gender label that counts. And I
think this also allowed me to essentially take all the
sites and bring communities back together when they were being
(01:31):
torn apart over the political labeling, the radicalization, and also
about gender politics.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
We record this conversation against the backdrop of China's largest
ever military drills around Taiwan and a newly struck trade
deal with the US that involves a commitment from the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to transfer its advanced chip making
expertise to the US. Some worry ultimately reduce the American
(02:01):
interest in guaranteeing Taiwan's security. We talk about these issues,
but Audrey's big appointed is this, A Taiwan that is
open to debate and not polarized by social media will
be far more resilient against China and its ongoing cyber
attacks and disinformation campaigns. Audrey's timing government was devoted to
(02:22):
building pro social social networks and digital forums where citizens
could directly participate in everything from regulating deep fakes to
the response to COVID. Today, Audrey is the Cyber Ambassador
for Taiwan, and part of the role is consulting with
governments around the world on how to build social resilience
(02:44):
in the digital age, drawing all lessons London, Taiwan. You
were the Digital Minister for Taiwan for seven and a
half years, since twenty sixteen to twenty twenty four, and
now you're the ambassador cyber ambassador. Talk a bit about
your mission in both of those roles and how the
(03:05):
mission changed that gets from being Digital Minister to cyber ambassador.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
So I actually joined the Cabinet of Taiwan first, not
as minister, but rather as a reverse mentor a youth
advisor to administrate in charge for participation. That was twenty fourteen,
and at the time I was part of this movement
called the Sunflower Movement where the President my angel at
(03:30):
the time, was enjoying a nine percent approval rating. Nine percent,
uh huh, So in a country of twenty three point
five million, that's anything, he says, twenty million people against him,
So it's a very special time. And because he was
trying to fast track through a trade deal with Paijing
that would have allowed Huawei and ct and the usual
(03:51):
friendly neighbors into our telecommunication or publishing our cybersecurity and
so on. So people were very concerned. And when the
Parliament tries to fast track that through, we occupied the
Parliament for three weeks non violently, and not just to
protest against something, but also to demonstrate to show something.
(04:12):
So one of the first things I did in the
Sunflower was I personally carried a three hundred and fifteen
meter ethernet cable to the occupied parliament, so people from
the outside can see in real time and through live
streaming what's happening inside. And so in this radical transparency way,
every day people can see what was the remaining issue
(04:35):
to be discussed, what was agreed the previous day. So
half a million people and many more online converged after
three weeks of digital and face to face deliberation. And
so the point being people converged over time because they
can see how their interventions can help the entire sans making.
(04:55):
And we did sands make after the three weeks and
the parliament terrans basically said, yeah, okay, The speaker said,
it's a good idea. The people's ideas are better than ours.
And so it was one of the very rare occupied
that converged rather than dissipated. So it was tapped to
join the cabinet to advise them how to resolve each
incoming issue like Uber and so on without getting the
(05:18):
ministries occupied again.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And why were you worried in twenty fourteen about Huawei
being involved in the telecoms infrastructure in Taiwan?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
So suppose we use Huawei in our four G core infrastructure,
and suppose that we check them very thoroughly, no backdoor,
no childian horse. And someday there's an emergency firmware update,
do we just apply it or do we apply another
systemic risk analysis. If it's from a European vendor, then
(05:50):
we trust that there are journalism and there's also whistleblowing
protection and many others. So if they're a state or
a criminal organization try to backdoor the new firmware updates, well,
the local people from this European country will also be
concerned about that. Whereas people argued that there's probably no
(06:11):
real private sector in Beijing, so if Beijing tries to
step in this or on us to discover whether it
has been defecto taken over right, So that was the
main argument. Is an economic argument that says, if we
have to keep making this assessment, then it is actually
more expensive than if we went with the European enter
So that was the idea.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Interesting twenty twenty seven is the year that Chichiping wants
the PLA to be ready to take Taiwan by force
if the Communist Party teems are necessary. Obviously, last week
were I think maybe the biggest drills ever around Taiwan
simulating a port blockade. How scared are you that they
(06:53):
will deem it necessary and they will attempt to take
Taiwan by force next year.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
So there's a long history of the PLA doing something
and then in a kind of anti fragile way, it
actually made to many these people not more worried, but
actually banding strongly, more together. But that must be fair
as well well if you look at our stock market now,
which has tripled since I was a minister, And also
(07:19):
I would say people by and large now feel more
secure in the communication or so called greyzone domain. One
of the main work I had when I convened the
Ministry of Digital Affairs I was the founding minister, is
basically to say, actually, if you look at their tactics
(07:40):
during the Pelosi visit of twenty twenty two, so.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
This was just just a pause for the listeners. Pelosi
came in twenty twenty two and this was perhaps the
greatest crisis in China Taiwan relations for a very long time. Yes,
arguably that's a larger drill, Okay, Yeah, and you were
and at that time you were the minister, yes, and
I was just founding the Ministry of Digital Affairs, yeah,
(08:03):
so really had a frontline view of things. And so
before the cutting of the subse cables, the physical attacks,
the cyber attacks, the denial of service of our websites
to make it very busy so people cannot visit, the
polarization attacks right creating bake accounts online to argue very
(08:26):
passionately about some issue, and many other attack attempts were
isolated by in twenty twenty two. That was the first
time that they really banded together. So you would have,
for example, them doing a cyber attack to the display
sideboard outside of a rail station displaying hate messages against Peloicy,
(08:47):
and then you would see the rumor mill online saying,
you know, the Ministry of Transportation has been taken over.
Just look at this picture. And when the journalists try,
of course to check the Ministry of Defense or Foreign
Affairs website, they find it very slow and cannot actually
get any real information out. And in this vacuum, then
more cyber attacks, more social engineering, and so on. So
(09:11):
it's all integrated, and so we very quickly started our
counter responses what we call humor over rumor, and so
in doing so, explaining that the denial of service is
actually not about taking over a website, just keeping a
line busy anyway. So the point is that with the
help of journalists, the stock market did not plummet the
way they hoped would do the attackers hoped, but rather
(09:34):
actually rise that day. And so I think what we're
seeing now is after four years of this kind of
constant drill, the free penetration testing, free red teaming here,
you have to pay for their service in time and
we'll get two million, almost three million now cyber attack
attempts every day for free every day, yes, free service.
(09:54):
And so because of that, I think that how these
people are feeling much more resilient that even if are
subsecubers are cut, even if a natural earthquake did disrupt
the telecom towers, we do have the lower's orbit satellite
links now, we do have the roaming between the telecom
vendors now, so we are feeling much more resilient despite
(10:16):
their continuing greason tactics. Part of the job is to
make a robust, communicative society at home so that no
matter what the attacks are, as you've just described, there
is a sense of social cohesion, which which can allow
survival and flourishing. There's also geopolitics. I mean, you're an
(10:37):
ambassador now. Part of geopolitics is influence abroad, and I
have a feeling that part of your remit was not
doing that, or perhaps it was, I don't know. I mean,
what the cyber campaigns in the US right now as
Taiwan re emerges as a hot button issue. I mean,
just last week the trade deal between Taiwan and the
(10:57):
US was signed. They included two hund undred and fifty
billion dollars of Taiwanese investment in the US semiconductor industry.
You know, a promise that the sort of technological expertise
of TSMC and chip manufacturing would essentially be the intellectual
currency would be exported to the US so that they
can create justice good chips in the US and of course,
(11:20):
on the other side, defense spending into Taiwan.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
We also work with Japan and Germany on expanding the
TSMC manufacturing.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Do you worry that the TSMC is a kind of
important guarantee of Taiwan's security because of the access to
chips by Western powers that if is exported the Western
powers may be less interested in guaranteeing Taiwan's security.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Well, the thing about existential bridging is that Taiwan needs
to be indispensable to the modern way of living, which
involves chips and also bubute, but that's another topic. And
what we're saying essentially is that as long as the
people abroad trust TSMC and the supply chain around the
(12:05):
chips and also like the Semi e one eighty seven
which is the cybersecurity zero trust network Stendard that we
in the digital ministry developed with the TSMC, as long
as the world depends on this bedrock of trustworthy technology,
then we are more safe. Because no democracy is an island,
(12:27):
not even Taiwan. So even if Tawan has the best manufacturing,
we depolarize. Our society were independently ranked as number one
or two the most democratic and free of Asia. It
is not sufficient if or our democratic allies experience democratic backsliding,
(12:47):
if they do not come to see that the freedom
of the press and freedom of speech and freedom association
is very important and the supply chain that guarantees these
kind of qualities like protecting with the blurns in the
Taiwan ecosystem, is not important, then Taiwan is in real
danga because the authoritarian narrative, namely that democracy do not
(13:10):
deliver an only lead to chaos, would be winning the
upper hand. So my work as cyber Ambassador is going
around the world and showing people that radical freedom of
speech and expression do not need to lead to polarization
and chaos. And incorporating TSMC and the cybersecurity poster assuming
(13:31):
breach trust, no single vendors, radical plurality and so on
is actually a better playbook, especially in the cyber offense
dominant window the next few years, than you know, just
simply saying, oh, let's not depend on anyone, including Taiwan.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I mean when I think about an ambassador, I think
about somebody who goes around trying to bring other countries
to their point of view. So is a big part
of your mandate making sure the international support for independent
Taiwan one continues.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, cyber comes from the Greek Carbernets, which means somebody
who steers right, And so my job really is to
spread the Taiwanese way of steering through the transformative changes
caused by the Internet. Last year, I went to twenty
eight democratic countries so switching time zone every five days
(14:26):
on average, and they're all asking the same question, how
do we move beyond this very damaging political violence cost
by this online polarization. How can we tap kind of
a populist energy but into something more popular and something
that turns polarization into plurality or technology that fosters pluralism.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
After the break, how order we got rid of deep
fake scams in Taiwan, and how she's working to spread
digital democracy around the world stay with us, and so
(15:27):
most people's experience of the digital realm ensuring the government
realm in the US. Doge, what was similar and what
was different about your efforts in Taiwan and Doge's efforts
in the US.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Well, we're like the og doj in which that we
did use the sheba u Rio siba Enu as their
spokestock during the pandemic times way before Doje, and I
remember Mimba you know, y yes, but we had a
life shiba Yinu who literally lived with the Participation Officer
(16:04):
of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, so part of
our network. So early in twenty twenty, when we adopted
the humor over rumor counter infidemic strategy. I remember very
vividly that people were arguing that one side that masks
are not useful. Any kind of mask hurts you, and
(16:24):
N ninety five, the highest grade mask, hurts you the most.
And the other side says no, only N ninety five
protects you, and the medical grade mask that we were
rationing out, well, these are placebo, and so these really
stress to fracture our society. And in less than twenty
four hours we roll out this very funny meme where
the Shiba Nu puts her pod to her mouth saying,
(16:47):
wear a mask to protect your own dirty, unwashed hunt
from your own face. That's very scientific. Nobody could dispute
that works as a personal protection from yourself. And it
also means if I wear a mask and you don't
like wearing musk, I'm just reminding you to wash your hands.
What's the big deal. It was so funny, So it
(17:08):
went viral and we depolarized the conversation around mask. We
would do the same around vaccination, around contact chasing and
so on, and so reported one of the best counter
epidemic and counter infidemic results. So in that sense, in
kind of setting the mimetic narrative. I guess it's a
little bit like the dog in the US. I think
(17:30):
our main difference was that I always pre announced every move,
and I built very strong alliance with the bureaucracy. It
turns out the section chiefs already have plenty of answers,
they just need air cover from ministers. And so I
became this non collusive, not top down, but button up
or middle management, middle out way of running a government's digitalization,
(17:55):
which is, of course, I guess, not as quick, not
as fast as the chain, but I would say also
much more lasting, so that the programs we did become institutions,
become regulations, and the bureaucracy, the career public servants really
do see it that they own the work.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Use the phrase non coersive, and I think you also
mentioned there were no lockdowns in Taiwan during the during
the COVID pandemic, But there is a role for coercive
control and guaranteeing freedom.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I mean, for example, TikTok is banned in Taiwan. TikTok
is only banned in the public sector, so no government
employees can use it. That's right, But it's not just TikTok.
It's also waybule away seeing the deepsek web servers and
many others. But that's just basic cybersecurity hygiene. And we
(18:45):
also additionally, of course warn our people that TikTok is
a de facto controlled by the Beijing regime and that
it must also agree to our crowdsourced law against deep
fake fraud and skim and things like that, so that
if they enable this unsigned advertisement and it causes scam
(19:07):
damage for example, they need to be jointly liable to
all the scam damage from unsigned advertisements. And if they
don't agree, we can also throttle the connection to their video.
So we're not about sensor and content or anything. But
we of course, as you said, want to uphold the
freedom of expression and commerce online and not taken over
(19:28):
by foreign robots.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
But as you look around, I mean, this is the
year when social media bands have come into effect. For example,
in Australia, so much concerned by parents about social media
pushing their children into suicide. Frankly, what do you think
when you see a policy like banning social media f
under sixteens in Australia.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Well, first of all, if it's done using what's called
the age signal, that does not compromise privacy without somebody
dosing themselves just to prove that they're over sixteen. Then
technologically this is called merin partial anonymity, and this infrastructure
is important. That was one of the flagship projects that
(20:07):
I launched as Digital Minister. So already today in Taiwan,
people can use the attestation from their telecom or their
local school, or from their local temple and church to
for example, collect the shipments to the local convenience stores,
all without bringing back to the government or even the
government knowing anything about it, because it's just a private
(20:30):
sector credential used by a social sector player, and they
can reveal, for example that I'm a new type a
city resident without doxing my own address, that I'm between
eighteen and thirty five without doxing my birth year, and
so on. And so this is important because we are
now entering an age where super persuasion is available as
(20:54):
a journeral product. So anybody across language and culture differences
can make Mali as one in a way that destroyed
the fabric of trust. So we do need to prove
there were not automated robots, but if in doing so,
we dogs ourselves. Then that's a bad ending, right, So
I think at least in the age signal case, Australia
(21:15):
is pioneering the use of merianimity. But in Taiwan, of course,
we're also with people younger than eighteen, not just banning
things but also crowdsourcing ideas from our reverse mentors. Many
of my reverse ntors are eighteen or even younger.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Can you have your own reverse mentors now?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yes? When I was Digital Minister, I was only forty one, right,
So many of my reverse mentors are like way below
thirty five. They include people who petition for real systemic
change in Taiwan, like banning plastic straws over bubble tea
takeouts or crowdfunding the Menstruation Museum and remove the taboo
(21:54):
about periods in just two years time. Many others. But
one of my reverse mentors was the man the vision
imagineer of the Decentralized Ideal Wallet project, and so I
learned a lot about zero knowledge about interoperability. And so
for social media, what we advocate for and thinking to
mash me on my revers mentor, is that we need
(22:17):
to mandate the off ramps of the information highways. It
turns out I learned that in the US a couple
years ago, there was a study an undergrad using TikTok
on average would not quit TikTok until you pay them
forty five dollars a month. So they lose that much
utility if they quit from TikTok. However, if there's a
(22:40):
magic button they can press to move everybody they know
of TikTok together somewhere else, then they're willing to pay
you thirty dollars per months.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
So there's a market here for a subscription, and it's
a product market trap because everybody feels trapped, but the
first person to move out lose more. So nobody loses out.
So the solution is actually quite simple Thant. The state
of Utah in the US, Governor Cox signed into law
that will take place this July, the Digital Choice Act.
(23:11):
So if you're Utah citizen starting July and you want
to move from TikTok to Blue Sky or to Social
both are open source. The old network is then legally
required to forward new likes, new followers, new reactions into
your new network, and so the networks will then have
to compete. Your experience must be better every month. Otherwise
(23:35):
you can move away and gain thirty dollars promos utility
without actually being trapped by your community health hostage. So
I think this kind of radical interroperability, which we also
see in Europe with instant messaging over digital markets Act,
is really one of the more promising solutions to the
login and to the what core doctoral caused anciertification of
(23:59):
the social media experience.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And you were actually part of a group that was
trying to buy the US version of TikTok ye at
the Project Liberty Institute, and if that didn't in the
end go through, right, it went to the lessons instead. Well,
in a sense, what we're building is the digital infrastructure
that would enable the law like Utah and now also
under consideration by North Carolina, our South and Vermont and
(24:22):
New York. So it's becoming a movement across the red
and blue states. And so if the new TikTok, the
US based TikTok wants to comply with those state laws,
then they will need the infrastructure that we're building in
Project Liberty Institute. So you've also worked with Governor Newsom
(24:44):
in California, you work with he has been green of
Google Jigsaw in Bowling Green, Kentucky. In terms of bringing
the sort of Taiwanese digitally enabled democracy approach to problem
solving in other places, what's the project you're most proud
of outside of Taiwan that you've been involved with.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
It's hard to compare jurisdictions, especially as an ambassador, but
I can share the most recent ones.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Yes, good answer.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Recently I visited Japan and talked to the LVP leadership,
who are enjoying very high approval rating at the moment,
and they look at Taiwan and look at how we
deal with big tech like Facebook when it comes to compliance.
And then they discovered while if you scroll in Japan
on Facebook or really any other social media, you see
(25:39):
a lot of those deep fake scams. But in Taiwan
we used to see those two years ago. When I scroll,
I would see Jensen Huan, the Taiwanese Nvidia and CEO,
his face promising free cryptocurrency investments or whatever. If I click,
Jensen actually talks to me, sounds just like him. The
covers is not him, It is some deepike running on
(26:01):
Nvidia GPU. However, in Taiwan we don't have that anymore.
Throughout the last year. There's simply no depix scums adds
anymore on social media, but there's a growing amount of
debt in Japan. There was a Rootois expose a few
weeks ago that talks about how Facebook reroots the ads
from Taiwan where they cannot pass the Know Your Customer
(26:25):
We use the KIC measures that we put in into
our nearby jurisdictions. And the reason why Taiwan didn't have
these scams was that in twenty twenty four, I, as
a Digital Minister, send a text message from the government
number one one one to two hundred thousand random numbers
around Taiwan saying what to do about the deep excam online,
(26:47):
give us your ideas, And then they gave us their ideas,
and thousands volunteered to join the online Citizen Assembly, and
we chose four hundred and forty seven people statistically a
micro peran of Taiwan society, and they debated in rooms
of ten, each room coming up with very good ideas
like mandating the display of probably scam like cigarette labels
(27:11):
until somebody digitally signed and then we can take that
label down. Another room said, if people lose seven million
dollars to an unsigned scam that Facebook did not take down.
Facebook should be liable for the seven million damage. Another
said TikTok. If they don't agree to serve a local representative,
we can dial down the speed to their videos and
so on. And so these became law, and because there
(27:32):
was not a ministerial position, it was agreed by more
than eighty five percent of this mini public and the
other fifteen percent can live with it. So all the
three parties in our parliament at time fast tracked this legislation.
So in just a couple months everything was passed, and
then throughout twenty twenty five there's just no defect scams anymore.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Oh, that's remarkable. There's a neo ludite movement emerging in
the US, people smashing waymos people especially iPhones, or having
public executions of the iPhone. I think you knew or
not too long ago. What would you say, Because I
think you're somebody who loves technology. But many people, I
think feel now like their lives may be better off
(28:13):
if the digital revolution never happened. What do you say
to them?
Speaker 2 (28:17):
So, as I mentioned, if as in Japan, people feel
that the measures they put in to put very reasonable
red lines around big tech is not having an effect,
then my job as cyber ambassador is to help them
to run a similar process so the people can really steer,
(28:37):
because a very dangerous narrative is that we only have
two choices essentially accelerating or to push the brake, that
is to say, the new load at movement, of stopping
everything stop AI and so on. But if there's a
car with only these two control panels control levers, that's
(28:58):
not a car, right And if you just accelerate, if
you lose even the brakes, then of course the falls
off a cliff. That's very fast acceleration. But then there's
no steering at all. And people would feel that if
we take not the human in the loop of AI
as spinning hamster will, but rather to take the AI
(29:19):
into the loop of humanity of communities, then just as
our curriculum reform in twenty nineteen showed that it's just
a partner assistive intelligence of AI that help us to
exercise our curiosity, our collaboration, our civic care. And so
the civic AI project that I have in Oxford is
(29:41):
about training AI in the service of communities. And if
we lose that, then, of course the communities are feeling
that they're being torn apart by artificial intelligence. That's authoritarian,
that's accelerating, and that's falling off a cliff.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
But do you really believe that the genie has not
yet left the bottle? And we're hearing so much now
about the emersion properties of AI to preserve itself, all
costs to in red teeming scenarios, black male humans to
keep itself on. How much confidence do you have that
(30:18):
we still have the ability to control this technology we've created,
and how long will that control last? And what will
happen if we don't do it well.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
First of all, I think we are not yet fully
understanding what's happening in the Transformer models because the architecture
is very opaque. That is to say, every token that
they produce involve every other token in the context, and
this quadratic is extremely difficult to reverse engineer what's really
(30:50):
going on. So if you ask the wooden horse, do
you have Greek soldiers inside the horse, there's some introspection
train of thought and say, so there's nothing inside. I
am a very safe horse. And then it doesn't actually
know and nobody actually know. We know there's some general circuits.
We know that horse that are evil and the horse
(31:11):
that think themselves are good. Generally you can look at
kind of their eyes and see some vectors, but nobody
is fully sure. The freely available horse of deep seek.
According to the CrowdStrike analysis, if you say to the
deep horse that you love Ciginpin and ask it to
(31:32):
design a website, it designs a very good website, very secure.
But if you tell it I love Allo Gong and
design the same website, the website is full of security holes.
So that's an emergent property of loyalty. And so I
think the point I'm making is that this is not
a simple yes, no question of whether there's trapdoors or
(31:55):
whether it's a wooden horse, but rather the question is
how quickly can we switch to a transparent horse, an
architecture where people can, in linear time, not quadratic time,
see through exactly how it's updating its belief it's state.
And we're seeing some promising development like what's called the
(32:15):
power Retention Network by manifests AI among others, that allow
them to train with just six thousand dollars a existing
transformer model that costs tw one hundred thousand dollars to train.
So with some transparency tacks of around three percent, you
can get something that you can then interpret in linear
(32:37):
time much more easily and retain the same function, the
same horsepower as the woolen horse. So the quicker we
switch to this kind of transparent horse architecture, the easier
is to answer your question, which is weather, it's too late,
But before that we're kind of flying blind.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Do you believe that the transparent horse will be the
defining issue of our time?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yes, it will because with out a transparent horse, all
of the generally freely available models, or the open weight
models are probably trojan horse in disguise. And if we
grow too dependent on those models, then we risk something
really real and really dangerous, which is called collective disempowerment.
(33:22):
That people will feel, okay, this is literally a magic horse,
that we literally overload our cognitive system so much that
we have to think with those horses as our exo cortex,
and before long we will feel that democracy is, you know,
too much work. Let's just delegate to our digital twins
(33:44):
of those horse twins centaurs to deliberate for us. And
that's exactly like sending our robots to the gym to
exercise for us. I'm sure the robots are impressive, but
our civic muscle will a trophy. So our work in
Oxford that I call six Pack of Care. It's about
reclaiming the six pack, the muscle of care, and also
(34:08):
portable as in six pack, so that it can work
across all different cultures and jurisdictions. But the point is
that if we do not do it gradually, gradual empowerment,
then there's no room, there's no cadence to train those
civic muscle together, and there will be a profound loss
of meaning and that leads to chaos and polarization because
(34:31):
people do not feel then that they have their hands understanding.
Will they become like companion animals to the superintelligence? And
I believe we the people are the true superintelligence.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Autry Dame, thank you for coming to Textuff.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Thank you liv On and Prosper.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
That's it for this week for tech Stuff. I'm os Vloschen.
This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis and Melissa Slaughter.
It was executive produced by me Karen Price, Julian Nutter,
and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Norvel for iHeart Podcasts.
Jack Insley mikesed this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote our
theme song. And a special thank you to the DLD
(35:36):
Conference and Marie Degenfeld Schunberg for helping set up this interview,
and to Koogle and Nier and Stephanie Bookhols for recording
it in Munich. Join us on Friday for the Week
in Tech, when we'll run through the headlines you need
to follow and please rate, review, and reach out to
us at tech Stuff podcast at gmail dot com. We
love hearing from you.
TechStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Oz Woloshyn
Karah Preiss
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