In our cover story, we are focusing on the young generation, specifically Generation Alpha—those born between 2010 and 2025. Generation Alpha sits at the peak of a world population boom and is the largest same-age cohort in human history. They have been connected to the Internet since birth, love platforms like Roblox, and are the first generation to grow up with AI.

What image do you have of Generation Alpha? Compared to previous generations, what do you see as their strengths or weaknesses?

I think Gen Alphas are more than digital natives; they are digital inhabitants coexisting with AI. I see those who have grown up entirely with the embrace of the broadband era as natural gardeners of technology, not just consumers. They are gardeners because they are capable of wielding those digital tools to build shared realities, as opposed to just inhabiting virtual realities.

I speak as a council member in the design of Taiwan’s national education curriculum. In 2019, we shifted the focus from “literacy”—which for the previous generations implied reading, understanding, and written examination—to “competence.” Competence empowers the next generation not only to consume but to co-create and contribute to the media landscape.

To answer your question, they do not see the Internet as a separate utility to be logged into. They see the Internet as a continuous civic space where, through autonomy and interaction with others, they can come up with solutions in ways that our generation simply cannot imagine. There is no question in my mind that Gen Alpha possesses an intuitive grasp of “Plurality”—the idea that we can collaborate across diversity without erasing our differences.

Older generations often view AI and broadband connectivity with trepidation or fear regarding polarization. But I feel that Gen Alpha views these tools as amplifiers of their agency. They are not waiting for permission to participate in democracy. They are already forming communities—as you say, on Roblox—initiating social innovation, and demanding a future where technology serves human values.

My mission is to build the freedom infrastructure they need to flourish, ensuring that when they take the steering wheel, they have the wherewithal to turn conflict into curiosity, collaboration, and civic care.

That is very interesting—they are not waiting for permission to participate in democracy.

Focusing now on the U.S. situation: The United States has a big problem in terms of politicization. Conflicting opinions are basically the foundation of democracy, but the reality is the opposite; parties no longer seem able to engage in constructive debate. You described in your book Plurality that technology can be used for collaboration across social differences.

In Taiwan, digital platforms such as vTaiwan have been used to reflect diverse public opinions to resolve real policy issues, including regulations on companies like Uber. Do you think it is possible to create a shared, common platform for dialogue in the polarized United States?

Yes. In your previous question regarding the weaknesses of Gen Alpha, I think their greatest vulnerability is exactly what you just mentioned: the antisocial media that currently permeates the digital landscape. If Gen Alpha is left only with tools designed to maximize addiction and outrage—algorithms that strip away nuance and leave only thin slivers of what once was dialogue—then they risk losing the context necessary for true understanding. Without the skills to deconstruct these algorithms and build unique, pro-social media, Gen Alpha faces a crisis of fragmentation.

In the U.S. particularly, I think this is not an inevitable clash of values. As with other countries, this is a symptom of antisocial technology designed to amplify division. In Plurality, my co-authors and I argue that we can build pro-social media as an infrastructure that does not force people to agree, but guides them toward finding “uncommon ground,” or surprising common ground—a rough consensus.

I can share a link regarding a shared platform for a mini-public representative of the entire U.S. population, featuring five people from each congressional district. It replaced the algorithm that optimized for outrage with one that optimized for overlap. As the 2,000 or so people participating in “We the People 250” have discovered, they no longer view democracy just as a contest among disparate voices. Their experience on the platform is viewing it as a collaborative technology where diversity is a positive “geothermal power” of co-creation and progress, not an obstacle.

In Taiwan, ten years ago, we used Pol.is, a pro-social conversation platform using machine learning to map opinion clusters and identify statements that bridge divides. These “uncommon grounds,” instead of the loudest voices, were amplified. This informs the Community Notes on X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, and Facebook today, which decentralize fact-checking by requiring those holding opposing viewpoints to agree on context before a Community Note is published. These pro-social technologies demonstrate that when we design for collaborative diversity, even polarized societies can move from outrage to overlap.

I am currently based in Washington, D.C., having arrived in 2022. Since then, I have become a bit pessimistic about the polarized situation in the U.S., but you are very optimistic about the U.S. future, correct?

Yes. The “geothermal” idea is that we see polarization and conflict not as volcanoes to flee from, but rather as energy for renewal. To me, the rise of extremist ideas and conspiracy theories is not inevitable. We can reverse this anytime using pro-social systems.

For example, during COVID in Taiwan, we had this idea called “Humor over Rumor.” We used to be very polarized regarding the “toilet paper panic.” When rumors spread that mass production of masks was consuming all our tissue pulp, we did not just deny it or engage in debunking. Actually, we did “pre-bunking.” Our Premier and head of the cabinet, Su Tseng-chang, immediately released a meme showing him wiggling his bottom with the caption: “We only have one pair of buttocks.”

By using humor, the sublimation of outrage became possible. The message went viral faster than the conspiracy, effectively vaccinating the minds of the people against polarization and panic without resorting to censorship.

What is the big difference between Taiwan and the U.S. in terms of polarization?

In Taiwan, we have a digital immune system. We empower the people to act, instead of relying on top-down censorship by the big state or big tech platforms. It is the “big society” in Taiwan that produces such solutions.

For example, when we see AI-generated deepfakes, we don’t censor them. Instead, we sent 200,000 text messages to people around Taiwan asking, “What should we do together?” They came up with good ideas, like a “provenance-first” media environment where advertisements—including those by public figures—use digital signatures to authenticate content. We prioritize this kind of KYC (Know Your Customer) safety over advertisement engagement rates. The watchword must be “Safety Over Engagement.”

We can use AI as assistive intelligence to empower communities to flag and contextualize deepfakes in real-time, turning the Internet from a space of deception into a shared reality where trust is the currency.

There is now a lot of interest from Japanese ministries and celebrities regarding this Taiwan model. In Taiwan, we are bringing Generative AI to ensure that performance information and fact-checking published on official websites can be turned into audiovisual messages. Like the meme produced by Premier Su, we can automate part of that generation so people can quickly pass it along. We want to shorten the famous “2-2-2” period—two hours after a rumor, providing two pictures or two minutes of video with 200 characters—into perhaps “1-1-1.”

Behind the polarization lies a deep distrust of governments and mainstream media. Many people feel there is no longer any source of information that everyone can agree is reliable. This is not unique to the U.S.; in Japan as well, conspiracy theories and extremist ideas are gaining popularity through social media.

Does AI make this situation worse, or can it become a key factor in solving these problems?

One lesson I learned from Generation Alpha is the difference between “vertical” and “horizontal” trust. In our generation, there are vertical institutions like journalism, universities, and ministries that exist primarily in an offline world. We log into the online world, and we log off into the real world.

But Generation Alpha does not have this notion of a vertical mode of trust where you automatically trust the top journalists, ministers, or professors. To them, the online and offline worlds are just different modes of a single shared reality. They prioritize a horizontal mode of trust, which is collaboration, over the vertical mode based on seniority. They are not waiting for top-down instructions. They are intuitively forming communities across borders to tackle global challenges.

They already see AI as assistive intelligence, not as a replacement for human thought. To overcome the issue you mentioned, media practitioners need to shift from this vertical mode of top-down explaining into the horizontal mode of peer-to-peer co-production. We need to democratize journalism so each and every person can participate in collaborative sense-making. Instead of each person just guessing the social norm regarding an emerging issue—“reading the air”—we need to learn to “write the air” and create common knowledge together.

In your book, I was very impressed that the digital platforms in Taiwan are so interactive, and people can feel directly involved. Do you think this interactive communication is a key factor for democracy in the next generation?

In Taiwan, we see democracy as a technology. Like any technology, such as semiconductors, we can upgrade it.

Instead of just “3 bits every 4 years”—which is called voting, where you choose between candidates—we want more bandwidth. Voting is very high latency (a long time to wait) and very low bandwidth (not a lot of choices). In Taiwan, we ensure that there is “continuous democracy.” Anytime, you can participate in online petitions, participatory budgeting, e-collection for referendums, or the Presidential Hackathon.

Schools also serve as “civic gyms” to train people so they can make sense of hyper-local matters—for example, air pollution, water pollution, noise levels, and so on. Because of this, people are able to train their “civic muscle” and become much more mature even before they turn 18. Furthermore, when the “Silvers” (the older generation) start training their civic muscle thanks to their grandchildren reminding them to participate, it is much more effective than the government telling seniors to participate. They tend to listen to their grandchildren.

I am now working for the media, so I am wondering how to get people’s trust back regarding basic information, like economic policy or fiscal problems. If we summarize or focus on certain issues for readers, they sometimes criticize the media as biased. However, many misunderstandings of basic information are caused by a lack of summarization by the media.

What do you think the mass media should do here?

As I mentioned, instead of expecting your readers to just have literacy, you need to treat your readers as co-producers with competence. It is not just about reading and critical thinking anymore—that was for when the media was paper-based. In the AI age, we need to use AI as a co-pilot with our fellow citizens. Instead of “readers,” they are co-creators solving real-world problems.

In Taiwan, for example, we allow each class of students to have a team coach that adapts to their pace and amplifies their agency. It is not just elite education gated by gatekeepers; every class has democratized access to these sense-making tools.

I believe that is the answer to the media issues. The traditional media gatekeeper finds it very difficult to function in a horizontal world of trust, where readers trust vertical gatekeepers less and trust people who sound like them and speak their common language more. They often check the comments before they even see the headline.

My vision in Plurality offers a different path: not “Addictive Intelligence”—where people are trapped in short soundbites while centralized corporations extract data and profit—but “Civic AI,” trained with the community, with value returning to the co-creators. This is what we are building in Taiwan with small and medium enterprises, indigenous communities, and local economies to forge a pro-social infrastructure. AI becomes a great equalizer that distributes sense-making power horizontally. That is how we overcome the “infodemic” of the AI age.

Income inequality is also one of the drivers of polarization. AI is rapidly transforming the way people work, and it will have a huge impact on the labor market and income. Do you think economic inequality will widen as a result?

I think the impact depends on whether the development of AI is democratized.

Taiwan democratized Personal Computing (PC) during the 80s. Before that, only mainframe computers controlled by big states or big corporations could do computing. People just typed into terminals where the system administrator could surveil every single keystroke and control which software was installed in a very centralized fashion. That, of course, contributes to inequality.

If we democratize AI as the PC revolution did in the 80s, we free this computing from tech broligarchy. If we permit just a few centralized elites to hold all the power of these models—like the mainframes of the past—treating the rest of the world as data mines, then the inequality gap will deepen.

However, if we steer this toward assistive intelligence, we can narrow the divide. We can run open, Civic AI trained on local languages and local cultures. Japan and Taiwan are doing this—Taiwan with the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE)—to ensure digital competence is distributed horizontally, like a school of fish. This empowers smaller nations to build their civic capability, turning technology into a ladder for equity rather than a fence of exclusion.

AI also seems to offer the opportunity to reduce educational disparities, which tend to lock in income inequality. How do you view the impact of AI on education?

As I mentioned, if we ensure that each school can have local Civic AI running as a team coach, then tutoring is no longer confined to the elites. This creates a profound democratization effect.

What excites me is ensuring that Taiwan is not just exporting chips, but sharing the open recipes for democracy—including our new curriculum—so that we can help emerging economies fast-track their AI development by sharing these field-tested trust architectures.

We have young people and senior citizens—the Silvers—performing collaborative fact-checking. Together, the 17-year-olds and 70-year-olds in Taiwan are the most active groups on our public participation platform. They have a lot of intergenerational solidarity. The wisdom of the Silvers and the enthusiasm of the younger people link together in co-creation. That democratizes not just education for knowledge, but also for wisdom.

If you joined the U.S. government, what would you do first?

My vision is that by offering these tools in Taiwan not as products but as public goods, we enable every society, including the U.S., to co-create a future where technology amplifies human agency and plurality.

My main suggestion is to think of AI not as addictive intelligence. Putting a “human in the loop” of AI is like a hamster in a wheel; the hamster is exercising, but the wheel isn’t going anywhere, and the hamster isn’t steering. My first action would be to take the human out of the AI loop, and put AI in the loop of humanity. AI should become assistive intelligence to amplify human agency.

I understand the idea, but I am curious about specific actions.

Instead of speaking hypothetically, let me talk about what I actually did.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been working with California Governor Gavin Newsom and his First Partner, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, on a website called “Engaged California.” Initially, we wanted to consult young people regarding social media use because it was a classic case of “something about them, without them”—rules were being made without their input. We wanted to consult them and their parents to set boundaries or “red lines” around social media use.

However, the week of the launch, a wildfire happened in the Palisades in Los Angeles. We pivoted. If you click on the website, you can see the Los Angeles fire recovery became the first conversation we hosted on this public infrastructure. They successfully bridged various conflicting ideas around wildfire mitigation and came up with a package of solutions. If you look at the action plan, people by and large agreed with their neighbors regardless of political ideology.

This is very good news because it shows polarization is just an illusion. When people enter this pro-social space in the U.S., they are not more polarized than people in Japan or Taiwan. It is a function of the space, not the nation. Now they’re having another conversation with the state employees about the use of AI in the public sector, like DOGE but bottom up, and Governor Newsom is working to make this a permanent public infrastructure in the California Legislature.

Ten years ago, I interviewed Peter Thiel of PayPal. I asked him about taxes on wealthy people, and he was skeptical, saying, “If the government never does the right thing… see the public schools in California.” It was very impressive to me.

In the AI era, what is the government’s role?

The government should be a gardener, not a gatekeeper.

In Taiwan, the main lesson of the past decade is that cultivating infrastructure for civic participation is much more effective than controlling outcomes top-down. Especially during COVID, authoritarian regimes tended to say only top-down lockdowns, shutdowns, and takedowns could protect people. But Taiwan showed that even though we did not lock down any city for three years, and our contact tracing was voluntary and privacy-preserving, we still performed exceedingly well.

We showed that it is not about “more government” or “less government.” The focus should be on better government. If we put AI in the loop of humanity—as shown by the Engaged California example—the government didn’t just solve wildfire recovery; it facilitated neighbors finding their own uncommon ground.

To address Peter Thiel’s skepticism: if the government acts like a mainframe computer—centralized surveillance and control—then yes, it will fail against emerging issues. But if the government acts like the Internet in the PC revolution, distributing power horizontally, then the government itself becomes an equalizer.

Some people fear that AI will widen international inequality as well. The U.S. is home to major tech companies, and its government is investing huge amounts of money in electric power and digital infrastructure. Meanwhile, a growing share of Generation Alpha will be in India or Africa. Do you think AI will deepen the gap between countries?

I think this is really two different questions.

First, regarding India, Africa, and the “Majority World”: the leapfrogging potential is real. Just as Africa skipped landlines for mobile banking, emerging economies can skip over the old, centralized mainframe AI infrastructure and go straight to distributed, local models. This may happen by necessity at first, but it is a better innovation model. Global majority communities may pioneer Civic AI solutions much quicker than wealthier nations can adopt them. Innovation will flow from the global majority, not just from elites in Silicon Valley.

To your second question about widening inequality: I think it is a matter of choice. Taiwan, Japan, other medium powers, smaller democracies, and emerging economies can form alliances to share open-source AI recipes. We can bypass big tech dependency together.

I was just in Europe—Sweden and Switzerland—talking about the “EuroStack,” which is inspired directly by the “India Stack.” The horizontal trust network used by Generation Alpha in India can naturally cross borders; they already collaborate with peers in Sweden or Switzerland on Discord, Roblox, and Minecraft. The idea is that emerging economies can teach developed nations about resilience, community, trust, and necessity-driven innovation. We need to flip the assumption that the gap only flows one direction. We can narrow the gap by ensuring Generation Alphas around the world work together toward the same positive vision.

Thank you so much. You are very charismatic, and I feel very optimistic about the future after this conversation. What is happening now feels like a revolution.

Thank you. Let’s free the future — together. Live long and prosper.

Thank you so much.