The Future of Maori Speech Transcription

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You know, obviously you're talking about the work that you and your team put into building out this model specifically for the Maori language. You've talked about how, you know, you're doing this with not a ton of resources. So what do you make of like the narratives that we're hearing right now around AI? I mean, they're very much an imperialist nation, only they're a corporation of an imperialist nation. Let's be honest. A million people speaking to Maori in New Zealand means that we will have a Maori language economy. There is money to be had, but who should have that money?

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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