Mass amounts of disinformation generated by artificial intelligence (AI) could pose a serious challenge to Taiwan’s international diplomacy, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Roy Lee (李淳) said yesterday.
Lee made the comments on the sidelines of the Taiwan Internet Governance Forum in Taipei, expressing concern that AI could be used to flood social media with false news reports.
Fighting disinformation of domestic or Chinese origin has become an important function of the nation’s diplomacy, which is being complicated by the rise of new technologies, he said.
Photo: Hsu Tzu-ling, Taipei Times
AI-boosted disinformation campaigns are significantly more difficult for the government to counter, he said, adding that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Digital Affairs convened the conference in a bid to bolster national resiliency in the digital age.
A solution to the challenges posed by AI would have to address problems across economic, diplomatic and military domains, he said.
Part of the forum’s agenda is for Taiwan to coordinate and communicate with its international cybersecurity partners, many of whom are to take part in planned nationwide cyber war games later this month, Minister of Digital Affairs Audrey Tang (唐鳳) said.
Observers representing foreign governments and security entities would be involved in pre-game discussions and post-game analysis, in addition to the simulated attacks and defense during the exercises, Tang said.
The observers’ roles in the games would be disclosed in greater detail at a later time, she said.
The Ministry of Digital Affairs is working on several concurrent projects to enhance infrastructure resilience, she said in a follow-up to Vice Premier Cheng Wen-tsan’s (鄭文燦) comments on Tuesday about a comprehensive plan to back up key government systems.
These projects include an effort to create remote backup sites that enable the preservation and recovery of key data should a catastrophic event damage data storage centers or telecommunication lines, Tang said.
Estonia’s digital resilience project is one of the models the Ministry of Digital Affairs is utilizing to implement its program, she said.
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