- The concept of a "Smart Nation" is to enhance the well-being of citizens by utilizing various information technologies or innovative ideas under limited resources, aiming for convenience, efficiency, and inclusiveness, integrating national systems and services. To achieve this, it is necessary to promote digital transformation, optimize national governance and services, improve citizens’ quality of life, and strengthen resilience against external threats.
- Happiness is relative and services must be tailored to meet citizens’ needs. When adopting new technologies for service delivery, it is crucial to assess whether the technology achieves the three main goals of convenience, efficiency, and inclusiveness: (1) Convenience: Providing user-friendly services to the public, evolving from online services → one-stop services → mobile services → proactive services (intervening before citizens raise their needs, e.g., automatically calculating and notifying citizens of their tax payments) → query-based services (services proactively reaching citizens, e.g., AI analysis offering personalized services). (2) Efficiency: Enhancing internal and cross-agency operational efficiency, shifting from an efficiency-driven approach to resilient infrastructure to ensure sustainable service delivery. (3) Inclusiveness: Bridging or eliminating various forms of barriers, such as accessible web environments (for physical, visual, or auditory disabilities), Digital Opportunity Centers (for digital literacy barriers), widespread telecommunications infrastructure (for network transmission barriers), public policy participation platforms (for hierarchical communication barriers—Director-General Wang cited a case where a mother of a child with G6PD deficiency requested on the platform to ban the use of mothballs in public restrooms, as exposure could be life-threatening; through platform transparency and public pressure, the responsible agency was identified and the issue promptly addressed), and online fraud and misinformation prevention (addressing information gaps).
- Expanding the scope of data governance: It is necessary to continuously expand databases to enhance their utility and scope, and non-governmental organizations should also participate in enriching these databases.
- Fundamentals of Generative AI: (1) Director-General Wang described it as "software adept at playing a word-association game." Using prompts is like hypnotizing ChatGPT into role-playing (e.g., as a five-year-old child, or as the Director-General of the Ministry of Digital Affairs), thereby achieving more precise functionality through collective fine-tuning. Taiwan has also developed a localized version of ChatGPT for trial use by public sector agencies. (2) Since it is not yet guaranteed that AI will refrain from confidently generating misinformation, it is currently used only as an assistive tool. Common risks in public sector use include AI-generated articles, images, or videos potentially infringing copyright, requiring careful scrutiny. The National Science and Technology Council has issued guidelines for the use of generative AI, emphasizing rules such as the prohibition of disclosing personal information.
- Prior to the pandemic, 42% of government services were processed digitally. After the pandemic, this figure increased to 64%.
- T-Road and Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) have been introduced to strengthen cybersecurity resilience, improving data usage, identification, and protection in transmissions.
- In terms of online fraud and misinformation prevention, the government now provides an official URL shortening service to facilitate public verification. In addition, a government-exclusive short-code SMS system is under development (expected to launch in November), allowing citizens to easily identify government-issued messages. For fraud prevention among private organizations, efforts include encouraging industry self-regulation, domain name takedowns, e-commerce logistic encryption technologies, and enhancing cybersecurity measures.
- Closing remarks: While looking back may reveal that the path of service development was not always entirely correct, continuous advancement and adjustment are essential to steer toward the right direction.