The Importance of the Kaiteaki Tonga License

5min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Tihuku has a license called the Kaiteaki Tonga license. The idea is that we're stewards of the data in the same way that we should be stewards of land. Non-Maori reached out wanting access to these tools, but Tihuku wants Maori to have first mover advantage. There's so much inequity that we're not even ready yet to benefit from open source, from open AI models.

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.

Support the show