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City says secure, open-source-based system aims to improve services while keeping human oversight
Jun. 23, 2026 17:54
AI signage. (Reuters, Gonzalo Fuentes photo)
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) on Tuesday praised a substitute service conscript’s role in building the city’s in-house AI assistant, “CiviClaw,” as Taipei promotes the tool internationally as a model for government use.
According to a Taipei Department of Information Technology press release, conscript Liang Chun-wei (梁峻瑋), also known as Benjamin Liang, is a computer science graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Liang was recommended to the city by the Compulsory Military Service Department to develop agentic AI for public-sector workflows.
Chiang said younger generations’ technical skills and perspectives are vital to digital transformation. He added that the city will expand AI in public services while maintaining cybersecurity, governance, and accountability safeguards.
Beyond internal pilots, CiviClaw was presented in April at SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 and the GovTech Conference Global, where Department of Information Technology Commissioner Chao Shih-lung (趙式隆) shared Taipei’s implementation experience. The forum brought together Tokyo officials, public-sector leaders, and digital transformation experts from Estonia, South Korea, and Uzbekistan to discuss AI governance trends and challenges.
Chao said governments face staffing and process pressures, and that agentic AI can help officials focus on higher-empathy, higher-creativity tasks such as policymaking and citizen engagement. Addressing risks, he said mainstream AI poses bias amplification and security concerns that limit adoption, prompting Taipei to build CiviClaw on the open-source OpenClaw system with private deployment, data anonymization, and tiered access controls.
He added that the system embeds a “human-in-the-loop” principle so that final decisions and accountability remain with officials, reducing misuse while preserving auditability.
Chao cited a pilot project, “Taipei AI Municipal News Channel,” in which CiviClaw assists in turning complex administrative information into scripts, narration, and video assets to improve public understanding. Chao also introduced CiviClaw at the 2026 K.T. Li Smart City Forum to mayors from Taipei, Taoyuan, and Kaohsiung.
The department said the project aligns with Chiang’s vision of AI as infrastructure rather than a mere tool, aiming for cross-system collaboration so AI is accessible across public services, governance, and internal management.
Taipei plans open-source collaboration with international partners, including the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, to advance safety, proportionality, and responsibility. The city said it will embed accountability, data governance, and transparent auditing into AI workflows.
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