AI and Democracy: Ambassador Audrey Tang on Plurality in Practice, Transparency and Collective Intelligence

Episode summary

What if AI could strengthen democracy instead of destabilising it?

In this opening episode, Ambassador Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s first Digital Minister and a Fellow of the Accelerator Fellowship Programme at the Institute for Ethics in AI, University of Oxford, shares a bold and hopeful vision of digital innovation shaped by the values of openness, accountability, and civic empowerment. In conversation with Dr Caroline Green, Tang reflects on her own journey from civic hacker to government minister, the role of “radical transparency” in building trust, and how plurality can serve as a design principle for both technology and democracy.

Ambassador Audrey Tang

Fellow of the Accelerator Fellowship Programme at the Institute for Ethics in AI, University of Oxford. Digital Minister (Taiwan, 2016–2024), Civic Technologist, and 2024–25 Fellow at Oxford’s AI Ethics Accelerator. Ambassador Tang is internationally recognised for pioneering work in open government, participatory democracy, and civic technology, including the development of the vTaiwan platform and the global project Plurality.

Topics covered

• What “plurality” means in a technological context
• Using AI to support collective intelligence, not replace it
• The practice of radical transparency in digital governance
• How pro-social media and open-source approaches build trust
• Reflections on moving from civic activism into public office
• New directions for her Fellowship project at Oxford

Resources and links

• Short film: Good Enough Ancestors
• Ambassador Tang's project
• Ambassador Tang_AFP Fellow