Inconsistencies with Facial Recognition Trial

FRT

Foodstuffs North Island (FSNI) controversially started a Facial Recognition Trial in their stores to provide more protection to their staff. There are mountains of research and cases of innocent people of colour being falsely identified by Facial Recognition Technologies, false arrests, being identified as gorillas etc. There is also a need for recognition of Māori … Read more

Te Ao Māori perspective of Privacy with DNA

dna

Many Māori and others have submitted the DNA samples via web sites such as Ancestory.com and 23andMe to ascertain their whakapapa, many without realising the cultural and privacy issues of doing so. Most often, you are giving away your rights to your own DNA that has all of your information about you and your ancestors. From … Read more

Treatment of Māori language in language modelling

voice

This is my contribution as a critical Indigenous Researcher to the Nature Journal’s article “Increasing the presence of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) researchers in computational science”  regarding language revitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, along with many other international voices. The Māori language was banned by native schools and other government led assimilation practices in … Read more

X is allowing 3rd parties to train AI on its data starting Nov 15

Earlier this week X (formerly Twitter) updated its Privacy Policy to indicate that it would allow third-party “collaborators” to train their AI models on X data, unless users opt out. Thanks to TechCrunch who first published the details. If you have already locked down your Twitter Privacy, there appears no change. This is a timely reminder that your posts … Read more

Māori and Iwi investments in NZ data centres

In the past month, we saw for the first time, a major Iwi, Ngāti Toa announce their investment into one of New Zealand’s many geographically located data centres, while also a Trans-Tasman Indigenous regional edge datacentre provider Gambarra Kaha announced that they have expanded operations to New Zealand with a sole Māori Director. Both announcements … Read more

Cross-agency survey of use cases for Artificial Intelligence

nzgov

The Government Chief Digital Officer (GCDO) released results of the 2024 cross-agency survey of use cases for artificial intelligence (AI). The results are not surprising when read and considered in conjunction with Aotearoa New Zealand business surveys and privacy perceptions of AI by the Aotearoa New Zealand public. Of surprise though, is the guidance discriminates … Read more

First New Zealand government agency to trial Generative AI

According toRadioNZ article, ACC is the first New Zealand government agency to trial Generative AI over the past year using Microsoft’s Copilot in tests. This article covers the key points and looks at the benefits and risks to Māori. Key points from the article: Most importantly and most reassuring is the government’s chief digital officer … Read more

Māori and First Nations Australia musicians views of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

New Zealand and Australian musicians were surveyed about their views of Artificial Intelligence and its impacts on their music, in addition Māori and Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders were segmented out creating a unique Indigenous Peoples perspective of AI and their music. The report AI and Music market development of AI in the music sector … Read more

How AI can help Indigenous language revitalisation, and why data sovereignty is important

MRW

Using the interview with Michael Running Wolf at https://www-cbc-ca.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7290740 , I offer some commentary and key warnings for Māori language that I am already seeing occurring here in Aotearoa New Zealand.   “Indigenous language experts working in computer science say Artificial Intelligence is a useful tool in language revitalization but communities must prioritize the ownership … Read more

Māori Data Jurisdiction: Myths, Risks & Hosting Analysis

cloud sov

Māori Data Jurisdiction: What the Principle Means, the Cloud Hosting Myths, and Where Māori Data Is Actually Hosted By Dr Karaitiana Taiuru. First published 11 August 2024; combined with “Māori Data Jurisdiction” (26 November 2024) and updated 10 October 2026. Hosting findings are a snapshot as at 26 November 2024. Key facts at a glance … Read more

ChatGPT and its gender bias with te reo Māori

gender neutral

This article looks at the gender bias with Māori language translations using the non gender specific pronoun in the Māori language ‘ia’. There is a significant amount of historical and recent research with, but not limited to Large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Google Bard, or LLMs containing various biases including against females and … Read more

Governance issues, Māori Data Sovereignty and Privacy Issues with Slack

Slack is a cloud-based team communication platform developed by Slack Technologies, which has been owned by Salesforce since 2020. Slack has freemium and paid subscriptions. Slack’s primary userbase is businesses, and has functionalities primarily for businesses. It is also popular among many groups including Māori. Recently and very discreetly Slack announced on their Privacy Principles: Search, … Read more

Safeguarding whānau, iwi, hapū, marae, rōpū from AI-generated deep fakes

Deepfakes are forms of digitally altered media — including photos, videos and audio clips — that seem to depict a real person. They are created by training an AI system on real clips featuring a person, and then using that AI system to generate realistic (yet inauthentic) new media. Deepfake use is becoming more common. … Read more

Facebook’s Meta AI tool

In a classic example of AI hallucinating or lying, Meta AI does lie to you. Or perhaps the AI engineers thought it would be funny to add the misinformation to Meta AI? There’s no way to disable Meta AI from either Facebook or Instagram. I asked Meta AI if I could disable it, and the … Read more

First Māori woman victim in facial recognition trial in a month

Only 5 weeks ago I warned Facial Recognition Technology bias in the Foodstuffs trial was technically likely and not a matter of if, but when and that Māori women would likely be discriminated against. That same week Māori Television first reported “Māori women and women of colour will be targeted’ in Foodstuffs’ facial recognition trial … Read more

AI media weekly commentary with Māori and Indigenous perspectives April 10

This is the second media commendatory on Māori perspectives that relate to AI stories in the media and developments. Again, there are so many stories to consider. Week ending April 10, 2024. LinkedIn post – AI and IA pronouns Waipapa Taumata Rau The University of Auckland and AI expert Professor Michael Witbrock on LinkedIn authored … Read more

Māori AI and data stories in the media this week

I provide my commentary of this weeks 6 media stories of Māori related news regarding Artificial Intelligence and Data Sovereignty. Noting it is highly unusual for even one media story a week regarding Māori and Artificial Intelligence. It is also a reminder that we all must be talking about and recognising Artificial Intelligence is being … Read more

Māori Voices in the Artificial Intelligence Landscape

Māori Peoples are at the cross roads with Artificial Intelligence and other emerging technologies; We can either turn right and decolonise and empower ourselves, or turn left and have status quo with all of the negative statistics and inequities. Featured Image Credit The AI Tribe. While the world faces the rapid growth of AI technologies, … Read more