Actually, that was the deal. When I was recruited into this position, there was one month of public Q&A with the public where journalists can ask me question, but only publicly, and for me to answer, and then only publicly. It’s a one month negotiation of what does society ask of me.
People mostly tell me that they want me to continue to do whatever I was doing before being a digital minister, but working on it full-time and supported by taxpayers. I think there’s no substantial difference and I still enjoy my work.
Any other questions? There’s some seven minutes. You’re all good?
People ask me that all the time. There’s a companion question: "Where do you see Taiwan going in five year’s time?"
Taiwan, the island, is raising 5 centimeters every year, so time it will be 25 centimeters higher five years down the line. It’s been around for a million years, so it will keep raising itself up.
I work to be radically honest. I work on a daily routine. I work on a daily schedule. I’m a creature of the day in the sense that I wake up and I see a plan what to do and just allocate maybe four or five hours of actual work, and almost always get it done by midnight.
My inbox is always zero by midnight. My only focus is getting things from inbox always zero by midnight. The idea is that I can just wake up and try something new, because there’s no baggage from yesterday to work with. I don’t even know what I will be like tomorrow. I imagine in five years...
It’s far off my horizon. But I think that is required during the digital transformation because there really is no roadmap for a digital transformation. Every day new technology comes, new societal needs come, the participation officers, the youth counselors, everybody serve this new social dynamics.
If there is a five-year plan, I think the plan is just to get the infrastructure and inclusion right. Whatever else happens, we need to process it on a day-by-day basis.
I’m kind of a perma-work person. [laughs]
When the previous prime minister asked my motivation of joining the cabinet, whether it’s social duty, a citizen’s obligation, a furthering of some vision, or whatever, I was like, "No, I joined for fun."
I find this work interesting, which is why I keep doing it. I don’t think I need to fun time or relax time, because I’m finding just this conversation very enjoyable in itself.
So we’re good? All right. Thank you so much.
Great conversation.
How can I help? Oh, yeah. We’ll be recording this. We’ll make a transcript, and we’ll send it to you for editing for 10 days before publishing.
Great.
Radically, actually.
[laughs]
Awesome.
Or advising, but yes.
That’s fine. I don’t have anything else afterwards. [laughs]
That’s great.
Nice meeting you again.
Very good to see you again.
Of course.
It’s fine for me.
You don’t think social media is a dignified purpose within life?
Perhaps we’re getting there. [laughs]
Everybody.
What is this?
It’s a phone?
Sure.
I have to move my head?
Not my eyeballs?
Well then it’s not really gaze-controlled.
That’s OK.
We got a demo last time.
Environmental annotations.
HoloLens?
We can create the future. We don’t have to predict it.
Really?
It would be challenging.
No, it all makes perfect sense. Do you have a neural lace lab?
Do you actually work with a neural lace lab?
That’s exactly right because you are imagining 30-years of innovation.
One thing with your Human 2.0 vision, I think what your vision distinguishes between the Matrix-like scenario is that it enables humans to still feel useful in a society and focus people’s attention on each other instead of through some fake intermediaries, right? That was the main idea?
Then I do worry about the current generation of VR/AR devices because it requires a lot of extrapolation to the person in the environment for their brains to fill in because the device doesn’t really know where my eyes are looking and the device doesn’t really capture my minor expressions.
If we use that for communication, then it’s not actually represented in the other side. It’s mostly extrapolated...
