Microsoft and the Maori Language

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Colonial governments and people of those governments worked very hard to ensure that our languages would become extinct. Fortunately for many Pacific languages, they haven't succeeded. But now we're at this point where any tech company with enough resources can just train up models and all of a sudden operate in our languages. It is colonization. It is domination. They don't care about the integrity of our languages. They just need it to be good enough so someone can say, yeah, Chachi BT is good enough for Tereomani. Let's start using it.

Paris Marx is joined by Keoni Mahelona to discuss the colonial nature of data extraction by major tech companies, and how Te Hiku takes a very different approach to revitalize the Māori language.

Keoni Mahelona is the Chief Technology Officer at Te Hiku Media. Follow Keoni on Twitter at @mahelona.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Keoni and some of his colleagues wrote about why OpenAI’s Whisper is another example of colonialism.
Wired and MIT Tech Review have written about the work Te Hiku is doing with Māori language in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Mark Zuckerberg owns a lot of land in Hawaiʻi, and it’s quite controversial.

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