48 posts tagged with "AI-Sovereignty-Governance"

Talofa reader,

Looking back on this year, or any year for that matter, but more intensely in recent years, you see the course of the year, the events that happened, the things you went through at work, at home, in the gym and with your social circles, the heaters and rain in winter, the fans and singlets out in Summer.

The ups, the downs, normal life shit.

But as the years stack up, the ups and downs aren't jagged spikes anymore, they've started to flow out as "arcs" of your years, and across those arcs, where jobs started and relationships ended, life events changed the course of your world, these became the seasons of your mortality.

I'm free-styling this piece because I had an observation about my life, sitting here at my desk, working from home on a weekday morning.

I say observation, because it's not a realisation — it's not an epiphany I had at my desk, and now suddenly I see the world differently.

I've known these things for a while, because I like to think a lot, and my realisations about how this life ebbs and flows came and went, in my late teens, my late 20s, and through to turning 40.

I'm at a stage in life where I can see the seasons of life happening, sometimes they span years, other times, months.

Nothing lasts forever, and everything must have an end.

Talofa reader,

The "digital divide" is a term I've been hearing since I first got into community work with my charity back in 2017. Back then, researchers from the '90s had this simple way of looking at it - you either had computers and internet, or you didn't. Pretty straightforward stuff: get people devices, hook them up to the internet, problem solved. The lack of Pasifika representation in IT was wrapped up in this whole narrative.

But here's the thing - the research has come a long way since then. JAN A. G. M. Van Dijk's 2020 book "The Digital Divide" shows it's way more complex than just having a device and internet connection. Just because you've got the hardware doesn't mean you're actually participating in the digital economy in any meaningful way.

I didn’t really buy the whole "just get them devices" thinking. I knew it was an important step, for sure, but in my experience that device never made the techie.

So, after working in this space for a few years, something started nagging at me.

The real challenge facing Pasifika wasn't what everyone thought it was. And I knew this because it was exactly what had helped me succeed in tech myself.

But something wasn't adding up.

Talofa reader,

Get ready for a long rant, with a lot of swear words.

I started writing this piece after reading about the Israeliterrorist attackon Lebanon on Tuesday 17th September, that exploded hundreds of pagers across Lebanon and Syria, killing 12 and woundingthousands.

It had been 12 months already of the genocide of the Palestinian people by US-backed Israel, and now a blatant terrorist attack in two more Arab countries, and all I’m seeing is the sustained and morally bankrupt western media, continue it’s agenda of lies and propaganda, straight down the camera, for the world to see.

To watch the western world - politicians, media, pundits, public figures etc. - with a straight face, talk the most absolute bollocks I've ever heard in my entire life, has been quite a thing.

Watching Matt Miller, U.S. spokesperson, repeatedly claim that theU.S. had not found any evidence of Israel violating International Humanitarian Law, even after all videos we’ve seen, and evidence and testimony has stacked up on news sites, has been sickening.

Talofa reader,

I saw a post by a Māori Entrepreneur & Investor who had recently launched an AI company, which left me flabbergasted.

In the post, he advises his followers to watch a documentary on Netflix, where the first episode discusses AI. He then remarks on the things he learned from this documentary, on Netflix, in September 2024.

This individual was surprised to learn about the extensive data requirements of large language models like ChatGPT. He only just discovered that these AI systems are trained on massive amounts of internet data, encompassing a wide variety of content. This includes not only openly available information but also potentially copyrighted material, and it's not clear how much of each was used.

The person emphasised that the training data for these models isn't limited to formal publications or books. Training datasets also absorbed personal content such as blog posts and social media interactions. As a result, these AI systems are exposed to a broad spectrum of human expression, which most likely included indigenous knowledge.

He's only just learned this, two weeks after launching his AI company that weaves AI with Indigenous knowledge.

I had to sit there, staring at the screen doing the "beautiful mind" meme, trying to make sense of the world.

How?

Talofa reader,

I had some thoughts recently on this topic, and after a live stream and discord discussion, wanted to note things down.

Talofa reader,

A few weeks ago, I made the relatively easy decision to wind down The Pasifika Tech Network.

"Failed project" may be a harsh way to put it, but I think there's value in calling something what it is, so you can better understand how not to do it again in future.

This is a project that failed.

Ok, but what did it fail to do? And why?

To understand that, we have to go back to the beginning and look at why it was created in the first place; what its intended goal was; and the reasons it wasn't able to live up to this.

I just wanted to send you a note to say, thank you, for valuing access to my writing enough to part with your hard-earned money…

And to let you know there’s more writing in the pipeline, it’s just been competing with several other things that require brain-space, which, as smart as I think I am, is still limited lol.

If there’s a particular topic you’d be interested in hearing me speak on, or explore, please feel free to contact me, I’m open to ideas.

Also, I’m gonna try the podcast thing soon- which will just be me reading the post out, so you can hear it how I mean it to sound :)

til the next one,

Ron.

Talofa reader,

Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to get invited to attend ‘Ngā Tohu Matihiko | Celebrating Māori Excellence in Digital and Technology’ Awards at the Due Drop Centre, in Manukau.

The event was really well run1. The layout, design, and production quality in the lighting, sound, and visuals were on par with some of the best events I’ve been to, including the NZ Music Awards, Rhythm & Vines main stages, NZ Homegrown, and shows at Vector Arena2.

All, I imagine, on a budget much lower than those events.

This, in my opinion, is the true sign of excellence—making the most of what you have. This has been a feature of the Māori people as I’ve known them my whole life. Don’t let the news channels and newspapers' anti-Māori propaganda fool you into believing the usual rubbish about any brown community. Once you actually look into and experience people for yourself, you’ll quickly see the truth.

Māori are rich in history, culture, empathy, and humanity for everyone in NZ and around the world. Yes, they’re “people”, and people are complex. You’ll have those who aren’t happy about one issue or disagree on outcomes and decisions about other things.

This is called the human condition and is not unique to Māori or their community. All human communities will have their positives and their negatives—or “room for improvements”.

I’m often surprised, as an adult, that this has to be stated so often, so loudly, and so widely. I knew this as a kid; everything had “pros and cons”, “ups and downs”, “swings and roundabouts”. It was so obvious as a kid that life and everything in it was “yin and yang”. So why, as adults, has it become so complicated?

Why is it suddenly not a “spectrum” and it’s all black and white?

Sure, Israel and the genocidal Zionists have murdered 16,000 Palestinian children. Something like that is clearly black and white to me, as in capital ‘W’, wrong.

But I digress. Why am I recounting my experience at the Māori Tech Awards?

I guess, mainly to document and share my thoughts as a Pasifika person living in NZ, watching a Māori event.

Talofa reader,

This newsletters going to be a bit different. A bit “looser” than previous newsletters, a bit more personal and conversational, both an update and examination of life to this point.

It's not lost on me I haven't written anything in a little while.

I didn't even realise I'd come to a full year of this newsletter- like months ago!

If how I celebrate my own birthday is anything to go by, completely missing the anniversary of starting my newsletter, is pretty much “on brand” for me.

This is newsletter #36, and I haven't packed this little project in just yet.

I remember this exact cross-road from my last writing project. I started it on LinkedIn as well. I told myself I was going to do a post on my blog regularly, and share it like I do on LinkedIn, like I do today.

Like all exciting new projects, they start with a hiss and a roar and they go for some time, even long enough to get some feedback on things. Inevitably "life happens" or so the saying goes, because I think that's just a convenient, non-looking-too-deeply way of letting something go that wasn't a failure of execution as it was a failure of heart.

What affects the heart?

For me, it's everything horrible going on in the world, it's knowing too much about how things are, the "reality" of life, and having no way of alleviating that pain, other than trying to distract myself with work, new projects or something more isolating so the pain in my head stops flowing to my heart.

When your heart’s impacted, you just don’t feel the same way about things after that.

Talofa reader,

The world is in a big mess right now, and it's hard to just potter on, talking about AI and technology. The reality of democracy and Western civilisation is being shown for the lies and hypocrisy it truly is, and it seems to be getting worse by the day.

The recent student protests that kicked off at Columbia University quickly spread around the world. They are in support of a free Palestine and aim to stop the genocide in Gaza this week.

These events have filled my timeline and my conscience, so I felt compelled to write it out.

I know I addressed the situation in Gaza in a few newsletters ago in:

The image of the West as the "shining light on the hill" started unraveling in a very public way since October the 7th.

This situation just reminds me this is not the first time Western civilisation has been shown to be the imperialist hegemony it really is.

As we saw with Iraq, Afghanistan, and countless wars, WikiLeaks and wiki pages later revealed U.S. and European war crimes and atrocities.

Usually, this stuff gets hushed up.

The media are able to facilitate the laundering of Western-backed genocides while Western governments are being trigger-happy on putting sanctions on countries.

They influence other countries to do the same (or else), or they just straight up “regime change” these sovereign nations, to better pillage that country's resources.

I don't know why, but it feels different this time - and not in a good way1…

Maybe it's because of phrases like"the first genocide where victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real-time."that describe just how connected we are due to technology, and that we can now get the real, raw,on-the-ground devastationin real time.

I don't want to vent (much) about geopolitics and history.

I'm not an expert in those fields. I know what I've read and picked up, bits and pieces here and there.

I wanted to look at how something can go from being a great idea - like liberty, freedom, and free speech - to something that's oppressive, tyrannical, and must be resisted.

That's essentially the first part of the opening quote - if you want bad things, want all you want, it's got nothing to do with me.

But, and it's a massive "but", if the person has the***"power"***to bring about those bad things, upon me - that is 100% every single part, my problem.

It’s about power.