A Plurality Atlas

Who is Audrey Tang?

A Taiwanese "civic hacker" who served as Taiwan's first Minister of Digital Affairs. Tang wrote the book ⿻ Plurality with the economist Glen Weyl, and as of September 2026 works on the "6-Pack of Care", which aims to put AI to work for local care.

Look into Plurality and this is the first name you are likely to meet. Tang is a co-author of the book ⿻ Plurality, and has also been directly involved, as a participant, in the Taiwanese digital democracy that the book describes.

In short

Audrey Tang (唐鳳) is a Taiwanese programmer. Tang's official website describes Tang as "a civic hacker" (someone who uses technology from the citizens' side to make politics better); the Chinese-language Wikipedia also calls Tang a politician [2][5]. Tang served as Taiwan's first Minister of Digital Affairs from August 2022 to May 20, 2024, when the successor, 黃彥男, took office [5][17], and wrote ⿻ Plurality with the economist Glen Weyl [1][2].

The author profile in the Japanese edition of the book notes that she joined the Executive Yuan (Taiwan's cabinet) at 35 as a minister in charge of digital affairs; that during the COVID-19 response she built a system for managing mask stocks; and that in 2023 she was named to TIME magazine's "TIME100/AI" list [3].

Connection to Plurality

Co-author of the book. Part 2 of the book describes practice in Taiwan, and its chapter 2-2 opens with a quotation from Tang's "Job Description", written in 2016 [4].

A participant in the book's story. According to the Chinese-language Wikipedia, Tang joined in launching the civic technologists' community g0v in 2012, and served as an adviser to the citizen participation platform vTaiwan in 2014–2015. She was appointed a minister without portfolio in the Executive Yuan (responsible for the digital economy and open government) in August 2016, and the first minister of the Ministry of Digital Affairs in August 2022 [5].

Meeting Weyl. A record survives of a long conversation with Weyl in Taipei on November 21, 2018, in which they discussed Quadratic Voting, vTaiwan and data [6].

The person behind the Chinese rendering "多元宇宙". In a 2024 program, Tang said that this translation of "Plurality" was hers. She explained that it carries two meanings: a place where people of different positions exist together, and building bridges with open technology rather than relying on a few giant platforms [7]. As minister, she set up a unit in the Ministry of Digital Affairs called the "多元宇宙科" (Plurality section) [8].

After the book. At the University of Oxford's Institute for Ethics in AI, she started "Civic AI / 6-Pack of Care" with Caroline Green [9][10]. Tang's official website (retrieved September 24, 2026) lists the current roles as, among others, "Cyber Ambassador Taiwan" and "Senior Accelerator Fellow Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI", and records that Tang received the 2025 Right Livelihood Award [2].

Links with Japan. These include a meeting with a delegation from Japan including Haruyuki (Hal) Seki of Code for Japan (2024), a three-way conversation with Weyl and Seki (2024), and a public dialogue with Hiroki Azuma (2026) [11][12][13].

Main ideas

Supporting collaboration across difference with technology. This is the central idea of the book. For details, see the articles on ⿻ Plurality and collaboration across social difference.

Digital democracy. An approach that combines spaces for citizen participation (such as vTaiwan) with Polis, which makes the spread of opinions visible, and bridging, which picks out opinions supported in common by people of different positions. See also the article on digital democracy.

Deciding AI policy through citizens' deliberation. In a 2023 meeting with a team from OpenAI, Tang described a plan combining meetings of citizens chosen by lottery with gathering opinions online [14]. This idea is covered in the article on Alignment Assemblies. Her GitHub profile gives as an example the regulation of deepfake scam ads decided through deliberation in 2024 [15].

The 6-Pack of Care and Kami. In her own words: "The dominant AI safety narrative is vertical: one superintelligent system, aligned once and for all to human values." Against this, Civic AI "offers a horizontal alternative — many bounded, purpose-specific AI agents, each devoted to one community's relational health" [15], governed on an ongoing basis by six principles drawn from the ethics of care. See the articles on the 6-Pack of Care, Kami and Civic AI.

Reverse alignment. The question of reworking institutions and the foundations of AI so that people and communities "retain the ability to understand, question, modify, repair, and exit" (from a 2026 conversation) [16]. → Reverse alignment

What is debated

Over the "多元宇宙科" (Plurality section), the legislator Ann Kao criticized Tang's explanation as something nobody could understand [8]. Criticisms of the idea of Plurality itself are gathered in the "What is debated" section of the ⿻ Plurality article.

Further reading

  1. Interview with 80,000 Hours (English, interview, 2022-01-13; vTaiwan, Polis, QV) — https://archive.tw/2022-01-13-interview-with-rob-wiblin
  2. "6-Pack of Care: A Manifesto" (English, manifesto) — https://civic.ai/manifesto/
  3. Index of transcripts of talks and conversations (English, Chinese and more; CC0) — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript
  4. Author profiles in the Japanese edition of Plurality (in Japanese, book) — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/0-1/jpn/
  5. Three-way conversation, Tang × Weyl × Haruyuki Seki, "新概念『Plurality』を解く" (Unpacking the new concept of "Plurality") (in Japanese, article, 2024-10-03) — https://cybozushiki.cybozu.co.jp/articles/m006211.html
  6. Tang, contributed article "創造性は異なる視点が交差するところに花開く" (Creativity blossoms where different perspectives intersect) (in Japanese, article, 2025-05-02) — https://cybozushiki.cybozu.co.jp/articles/m006262.html

Sources

  1. Plurality, About the authors (English edition) — https://www.plurality.net/
  2. Audrey Tang, official website — https://audreyt.org/
  3. Plurality, Japanese edition, author profiles (in Japanese) — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/0-1/jpn/ ［CC0］
  4. Plurality, 2-2 "The Life of a Digital Democracy" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/2-2/eng/ ［CC0］
  5. "唐鳳", Chinese-language Wikipedia (in Chinese) — https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%94%90%E9%B3%B3 ［CC BY-SA 4.0］
  6. Meeting with Glen Weyl (2018-11-21) — https://archive.tw/2018-11-21-meeting-with-glen-weyl ［CC0］
  7. 早安新聞全球串連 (2024-06-13, in Chinese) — https://sayit.archive.tw/2024-06-13-%E6%97%A9%E5%AE%89%E6%96%B0%E8%81%9E%E5%85%A8%E7%90%83%E4%B8%B2%E9%80%A3 ［CC0］
  8. TVBS News, reporting on the "多元宇宙科" (in Chinese) — https://news.tvbs.com.tw/politics/1895042
  9. Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI, "Civic AI and 6-Pack Care" — https://afp.oxford-aiethics.ox.ac.uk/article/civic-ai-and-6-pack-care-reimagining-ai-alignment-relational-health
  10. civic.ai — https://civic.ai/ ［CC0］
  11. Conversation with Hal Seki and Japanese delegates (2024-03-22) — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/main/2024-03-22-Conversation-with-Hal-Seki-and-Japanese-delegates.md ［CC0］
  12. Cybozu Shiki, three-way conversation (2024-10-03, in Japanese) — https://cybozushiki.cybozu.co.jp/articles/m006211.html
  13. A Dialogue with Hiroki Azuma (2026-03-15) — https://archive.tw/2026-03-15-a-dialogue-with-hiroki-azuma ［CC0］
  14. Conversation with OpenAI (2023-05-04) — https://archive.tw/2023-05-04-conversation-with-openai ［CC0］
  15. audreyt's GitHub profile (section on Civic AI) — https://github.com/audreyt/audreyt/blob/HEAD/README.md ［CC0］
  16. Platform Originals, "The Other Side of Alignment" (2026-08-29) — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/main/2026-08-29-Platform-Originals-The-Other-Side-of-Alignment.md ［CC0］
  17. Ministry of Digital Affairs, "重要紀事" (Major events) (in Chinese) — https://moda.gov.tw/aboutus/history/410 ［CC0］
Related: Who is E. Glen Weyl? ・ Who is Caroline Green? ・ What is ⿻ Plurality? ・ What is g0v? ・ What is vTaiwan? ・ What is Taiwan's digital democracy? ・ What is the 6-Pack of Care? ・ What is a Kami?

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