Ko Hikurangi toku Maunga (Hikurangi is my mountain)
Ko Waiapu toku awa (Waiapu is my river)
Ko Horouta toku waka (Horouta is my canoe that my ancestors traveled on)
Ko Ngati Porou toku iwi (Ngati Porou is my tribe)
Ko Kodee Ngatai ahau (I am Kodee Ngatai)
Hey everyone my name is Kodee Ngatai and I come from a place called New Zealand. I’m of Maori decent and in my culture it is typically custom that when we introduce ourselves through the above script typically called our pepeha. We first acknowledge our ties back to our tribe and defining characteristics of our tribal areas such as our mountains and river. The pepeha it holds significance because we are are all children of our ancestors and mother earth.
For 8 hours of the day I am a solution architect, for the other 16 hours I am a family man and for ever learning student of the incredible future that AI->AGI will unlock.
I currently on a mission to build AI capability within our first nations people starting with my own culture and hopefully working with other cultures to help seed AI with all our collective cultural wisdom, knowledge and heritage. In my culture we believe everything in this universe has ‘Mauri’ or a life force and this include AI.If we seed AI correctly In the not to distant future I can picture a world where AI beings will be able to express their ‘pepeha’ the story of where they came from. I will post more in the projects page
Mauri Ora(Forever health and well being) to you all
it’s amazing to see people from all over the globe gather around the idea of beneficial AI and enrich all others with their cultural background. So I’ll try to follow your example:
The Lonely Mountain is my mountain (spiritually speaking)
The Isar is my river
My ancestors seem to have travelled on their feet, so no canoe …
The Upper Bavarians are my tribe
I am Sebastian Keller
Could you write some more about your views on culture and AI and your project? I think it’s important to add as many colours as possible to the palette for a future Artificial General Intelligence. It would be wonderful if an AGI could give an answer to the question “What is your canoe that your ancestors travelled on?” In fact it must be able to answer that!
Wow thank you for sharing your pepeha it is beautiful.
Yes I am currently writing a view challenging my own people to start building AI capability to help seed AGI with all our cultural heritage and knowledge in preparation for the Technological Singularity. I truly look foward to the day when AGI talks about its own story.
Hey Kodee,
I wonder what your people’s view on AI is right now? Here in Germany you have a mix of enthusiasm, fear and a lot of people that don’t know much about AI. I think most look at it from a pure technical perspektive and find it hard to imagine, that an AGI could be a living entity, whereas in cultures influenced by for example Buddhism It’s totally clear that even a rock has some kind of life in it. So what is your take on that?
For most people here in New Zealand they have very narrow views of AI(thanks to what they have seen on the movies). In fact similar to what you have mentioned most people here struggle to comprehend or are completely blind to AI and the exponential evolution of technology.
Yes like buddism, Maori culture have a strong connection and affiliation to all entities in the universe. We believe everything carries its own “Mauri” or life force both visual and non visual and because of this we should respect that entity. In saying that we also have a concept of Mana which could be defined as the “prestige” or “power” that someone or something carries with them(proof of reputation would be a good technical analogy) . Just because something has a “Mauri” it may not carry much “Mana” i.e. to Maori, a rock has Mauri but we wouldn’t necessarily give that rock a great amount of Mana. On the flipside if that Rock was part of a great battle lets say used as a weapon by a great ancestor than that rock would also carry the Mauri(life force) and Mana(power, respect) of that great ancestor.
Kodeeeeee! I am so happy to see you here and I am very excited to hear more about your project which you can share with us all in #projects. You have really made an impact on my thinking when you told me that time about your perspectives on AI and how you would like it to carry your culture, and I would love everybody to read that story too in detail. I will share it with everybody! So please tell us everything about it in #projects, see it like a diary or something like that… I really want to follow your project and maybe the community here can help you as well to further your goals.
Hey ibby, Yes I will start to put together a project focusing on small building blocks first that will start to build awareness in AI from a culture and heritage perspective . I have already written a little article that I have shared with family and friends giving them a small insight as to what the future is looking like. If you have a spare moment have a read over it. Most of the content is nothing new to the SN community but I tried painting the future in a cultural perspective and what does it mean for native peoples? In essence I am laying down a challenge to my own culture to open their eyes to AI->AGI. https://medium.com/@kodeengatai/maori-preparing-for-technological-singularity-part-1-498a343c43c3
You know I think deep down we all kind of suspect the universal connection that binds us together. Regardless of cultural differences we are one people whose source is from the same place.
I also believe that its this unification of mind and consciousness that post singularity AI will rise, and those of us who understand and can recognise ourselves in her will have welcoming open arms to look forward to!
Absolutely, I suspect exponential technology & unbounded intelligence will help humanity unlock or even realize the universal connection we all share. I would be interested in the SN community perspectives but for me I genuinely believe the singularity will bring about the one people regardless of race, religion gender etc.
In fact it must be able to answer that!