Te Reo Maori Under Threat from AI «
It looks like ChatGPT has taken over for te reo Maori. New artificial intelligence (AI) has concerns among academics and teleo speakers.
Chatbots learn quickly.
Since its announcement last November, ChatGPT has “learned” to write in te reo. The quality is “terrifyingly good,” says Te Taka Keegan (pictured) of the University of Waikato.
But he has a question.
“If they are producing very good Māori language…where did they get that data from?”
Probably AI collected from social media sites. If so, it worries him, he says.
It is possible that the chatbot results are so good that the language will move from the traditional reo to the ChatGPT version, which could mean that the Maori lose their sovereignty over the language.
“We have lost a lot of control over the land, the education our children have. Our own data and our own stories are like the last control we have over ourselves. If we lose our sovereignty, it doesn’t bode well for Māori identity.”
Ngapera Riley is concerned about information ethics, data sovereignty and rights.
Her company, Figure.NZ, is working to democratize New Zealand’s data, but she says she has concerns about how information is collected and misused.
“If you open it, it’s there, right? But we decided it was better to let people use and access the information than to hide it.”
She stresses that ChatGPT should not be used as a primary source, but as a tool. The results still require human auditing.
“If people get too lazy and start using it that way, that’s where it gets dangerous.” [as a primary source]”
Sonny Gatai is optimistic that the Maori can survive AI. He wants the language to be used everywhere.
But ChatGPT needs some boundaries, Ngatai said.
“When I raise the flag for data sovereignty, it’s about our story, our narrative, or our tikanga, that sort of thing.”
It is important to protect Maori intellectual property in such circumstances, he said. “It’s not just word-lining like a chatbot.
“It’s part of our identity, it’s part of who we are as New Zealanders. There’s more to this language than the ability of AI to translate what you want to say.”
what now?
Despite the challenges, Keegan is generally positive about AI.
This means isolating the chatbot’s data sources, training it using Maori, and controlling it at the iwi level. If it can be organized, Maori will retain their sovereignty and use AI as a useful tool.
Riley is also positive about what ChatGPT can offer. But Maori must be actively involved.
“My hope is that tools like ChatGPT will help save and use. [te reo]But we still need the human element to type into the language and check that we aren’t using the wrong source,” Riley said.
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News Category: new zealand.
https://cathnews.co.nz/2023/06/26/chatgpt-and-its-scarily-good-te-reo-maori-is-concerning/ Te Reo Maori Under Threat from AI «