The Crap of the Florist Data Set

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The problem has not been solved for most of the languages of the world. Facebook's response is, oh, help us to make this data set better. Why do we want to help big corporations, big tech, to better know our languages only so they can create more profits from it? Like what do we actually get in return? The honor of working with some like Flash company,. That's a thing that we see. We see it here in Al-Tearoa. And people get off on that and they will make poor decisions because they're in that situation feeling like they're so cool because they're working with Google.Like who cares? Totally.

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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