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Taiwan Moves on AI Governance

The Ministry of Digital Affairs plans guidelines on AI-generated content, deepfakes, and web crawling, with a framework due by year’s end.
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The inauguration of Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs in 2022, with then President Tsai Ying-wen presiding. SOURCE: Wikimedia Commons.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA), announced plans on March 12 to create guidelines to govern artificial intelligence in the country, consulting a range of academics, industry experts and platforms — including Google, Meta and OpenAI. The drafting process, to happen during the first half of this year, will reportedly focus on labeling AI-generated content and deepfake images, as well as regulating web crawling practices. MODA said it would target release of a governance framework by the end of the year. 

The ministry said it would pursue AI governance along two parallel tracks. First, it would develop an AI risk classification framework to help government agencies assess and identify risks, with a draft slated for the end of this month — very soon. Second, it would look at priority issues where existing legislation is vague and social impact is potentially high, including the need to clearly label AI-generated content and combat practices such as web crawling, — the automated scraping of online data by AI companies to train their models, often without creators’ consent. Separate guidelines are planned for both tracks, said MODA.

David Bandurski is the director of the China Media Project, leading the project’s research and partnerships. David joined the team in 2004 after completing his master’s degree at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He is the author of Dragons in Diamond Village (Penguin/Melville House), a book of reportage about urbanization and social activism in China, and co-editor of Investigative Journalism in China (HKU Press).

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