Mar 24, 2021

In the second episode of this series, Dan and Lee speak to proud Cabrogal woman, Mikaela Jade of Indigital and we talk about the impact, skilling and projects surrounding indigenous cultures in Australia.  

Show notes: 

Indigital Schools programme - Indigital - Australia's First Indigenous Tech Education Company (indigitalschools.com)

Indigital - Indigital - Founded by Cabrogal Woman, Mikaela Jade

Mikaela Jade - LinkedIn

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TRANSCRIPT For this episode of The AI in Education Podcast
Series: 4
Episode: 2

This transcript was auto-generated. If you spot any important errors, do feel free to email the podcast hosts for corrections.

Welcome to the AI podcast. Hi Lee, how are you doing?
I'm good, Dan. Good, Dan. Good to be back. Feels like a long time since we've been doing these. It's like a I don't know what is it, a couple of months.
I know. Exactly. And a new season started. So, it's fantastic. And and I suppose in this new season, we said we were going to be sitting down with some inspirational leaders in technology. and explore their thoughts on how AI and technology will impact their industry and the people they work with. So today we are really really lucky to have the inspirational and proud Cabriel Michaela Jade joining us and I remember Michaela when we first caught up. It was one of the I think one of the first times we met. Um we we spent hours mcking about Hollow Lens one the first time it came out and you were you had all these ideas and you were already doing some amazing things and we were chatting and then we went on from the Microsoft um office and we had a big smoking ceremony in Red Fern if you remember it was it was an awards ceremony at the National Center for Indigenous Excellence in Red Fern. That's right. And uh and it was like amazing evening and it was like wow this is so good and there was awards and there was all kinds of things happening and since then you know you've done lots of other programs around Minecraft and you've been to the United Nations so we've got a lot to talk about today. But what a couple of years this been. Hey, how are you doing?
Oh, really? Well, thanks Dan and Lee. Um, yeah, it has been a whirlwind since that day in Red Fern. Um, and I'm really excited with not just how much my business has grown, but how much everyone else who was at that night has achieved um, in the last couple of years, too. Like, we've got this amazing indigenous STEM community in Australia now. And it's um, really exciting to see all the things that everyone's achieved. And there's doing and their aspirations for future stuff, too.
Yeah, absolutely.
It It's amazing, Nick. And Mick, every time I get to talk to you, and we haven't spoken for quite a while now, but it just you're always so excited about what you're doing. You always got such a passion and an energy for what you get involved in. I don't know how you do it because you seem constantly just right on the cusp of just doing something amazing all the time. Um, so I really appreciate you finding the time to talk to us. So, we'd just love to learn a bit about you if that's okay. Mick, can we start there?
Yeah, of course. Um, so as Dan mentioned, I'm Cabrial woman uh which is in the George's River Liverpool area of Sydney. So that's my traditional country. I grew up um not being connected to my cultural heritage which was devastating. Um and it was pretty uh a hard time to find out when between the ages of 18 and 29 where I really came from and who whose people I belong to and what my roles and responsibilities are within my own um clan and community. And I've dedicated the last 12 years of my life um to understanding my people and being able to also work with other first peoples around Australia and around the world um to really champion our rights and our responsibilities and our obligations in digital technologies and in particular my area of interest is in future technologies. Um so I've done a lot of work in augmented and mixed reality and I'm also undertaking a master's in applied cybernetics at the moment at the 3AI institute. and learning all about cyber physical systems
as you do just at the same time.
Yeah. Yeah. And how like how we could weave culture and cultural knowledge, language and law into cyber physical systems. Um so that's been really exciting. Yeah.
It's just it's just it's so much that you've kind of fitted into such a small space of time. But like I want to just go back to you know when you talk about that when you when you discovered your your heritage and you learned that that gener which you know Must have been quite a moment for you in your life. But given we're talking about the technology impact here. Was technology a big part of your life before that because obviously it's driven a big part of your engagement with your you know with your with your community and with your um your heritage there.
Definitely. I was obsessed with computers from the first moment my dad bought one home. Um and it was in DOSs and I learned how to play Snake and then I was like I don't like this orange. Maybe there's a way to change the color. So I learned a little bit about coding when I was in primary school and then I loved Space Invaders as games and then I spent hours on the Seagga playing Alex Kid.
Do you remember Alex Kid?
Wow.
Finishing Alex Kid. That was like the best thing ever. Um all the while my mother just screaming at me and my brother and sister to get off the um the device. So I loved computers and I started doing computer science in year nine and then I quit because because I was the only female in the class and it just felt a really uninviting environment for me to be in and I didn't pick up my kind of love for technology until uh I was in my mid20s again.
So yeah, it was a bit of a a technology drought for me. Um
and I imagine that's not an unfamiliar story for a lot of young girls listening who are in that. I mean I've got a daughter who's 10 in year five and she get it's it's accessible to her but I still sense that sort of reticence of you know techn ology, any of those kinds of traditional boy areas are just not where she should go. And she's asking the questions. That's Yeah, I'm That must be frustrating for you.
It's really frustrating. And um my daughter last year said the same thing. She was in year nine and she's like, I don't like computing class. I don't like being the only girl in the computing class. And I feel like I'm being treated differently to other students cuz I'm a girl and I'm not going to do it. And uh Indigitech was holding uh a seminar at AU and she was able to hear Ray Johnson speak and was able to speak to Rey afterwards and Rey really inspired her to keep going. So, I'm forever grateful to Rey for that conversation that she had with Amy. Um because even though I work in it, um she was still having these feelings and I I just got really upset about it because we live and breathe this stuff in the company and she sees how great this is and she's like really involved now which is awesome. But it was It was a hard moment in year nine and I was like, "God, it's happened to me." So, is it something that happens in year nine or is this just a coincidence or like what can we do to change it?
Yeah, it's it's um I mean it's great and it's great that there are people like Ray actually a bit of a um a fan fan boy fan girl moment. I think it's fanboy because it's me. I actually I got to meet Ry um last week. I was doing some TV interviews for SBS and I met Ry. I've always kind of admired her bugle because she in many ways she's kind of similar to you. She's just very proud who she is and very proud of what she does and takes her prisoners on their journey. So, so it's great and it's great that that that she's out there, you know, giving your daughter that kind of thinking um and that kind of a viewpoint on life. So, um so it looks good. It's great to see that, you know, you kind of overcame that challenge in year nine and you created in digital and I'm sure there are many things along the way, but you know, in digital is where I first got introduced to yourself, Michaela. Um amazing company, amazing what you do and we'll probably get a bit more into some of the things that you've created there, but how did how did in digital get started. How did you start to think about building a company?
Yeah. Uh, so I was a park ranger for 21 years and I lived in national parks around Australia and worked with First Peoples closely on storytelling on cultural sites and it just seemed the most terrible way to share cultural knowledge through a metal sign at incredible cultural places. And our places, you're supposed to be there to learn. Like there's markings or uh things that are in these places. that you're supposed to understand when you're there and it's not how old it is. So, um, all of these signs that I was creating in National Park, some of them were as Christ as this is a cultural site, please respect it. Um, and some of them focused really on this is a 25,000y old site and radiocarbon dating and blah blah blah and archaeologists and nothing about who the people really were or what what the representation of the site was.
And I was like, we need more than just that.
And I saw augmented reality in 2012 at the University of Canberra and came home and had a shower and just thought, "Oh my gosh, imagine we could go to our cultural places and we could hold our phone up to the place and our traditional owners could appear in holographic content and share in the right language, the right story at the right time for the right reasons and also be paid for that content." Um, so I saw this opportunity um to develop this tech, but no one wanted to work with me. So, uh, I ended up reaching out to augmented reality uh content producers across the world and a guy um called Jason Higgins said yes, he would work with me and he taught me over Skype while I was being a park ranger during the day or going on Skype at night time and he taught me what he calls the dark arts of augmented reality.
That's amazing.
Um so yeah, I learned a lot from Jason and we did our first prototypes together. Um and the tech worked and I remember um sitting at the place where that it first appeared and just crying my eyes out because it had been such a two-year journey to get this technology to trigger on country.
What What was that first what was that first model? Can you remember? Yeah,
I'm sure you can.
The first model was uh was a video of an auntie speaking. Um so it was just as simple as that.
Wow.
Putting the phone up and it recognizing the cultural place and there was a video.
Um the second one we did was a video with an uh three-dimensional animated content around it which was of Anie Mandy Mure um who's a Morinball woman in Kakadoo and it was triggered from a pandanis nut. Um that project came about because we're experimenting with the technology and um Mandy was telling me how uh traumatizing it is for visitors to go into the visitor center in Kakadoo and pick up a small woven basket and and put it down because it's $200. And I was like, wait. this takes you like five days to make this basket. Um, I think people need to see the journey that you go through to make it and we could probably do that through this augmented reality. So, we tested that out and it worked really well.
Wow.
And then yeah, the third lot was the uh five pieces of traditional art with um five senior traditional artists in Kakadoo. Um, and that that's now at the Microsoft Technology Center in Sydney. It
It is. And that was the first thing I I picked up and I remember that was what I saw and that was my first introduction to it. And what what I think I don't know if you realize this Michaela, but just the fact that you showed the way that technology is not a barrier to engagement with indigenous cultures and traditional owners and and elders and and the stories, it's actually a gateway to make it happen. You've created this kind of mind swell of opening that door and making that possible. And and I I mean I know you you went to the World Economic Forum to talk a bit about this, didn't you? That was was that last year? year before.
Yeah, that was in 2019 when we could all travel.
That's right. Yes.
Yeah. But yeah, I'm glad I'm on the um World Economic Forum Global Future Councils for augmented virtual realities now and I get to work with uh 25 incredible people who are uh working all sorts of different mix and augmented realities um across the world and that's like a really enriching group to be a part of. Um but yeah, I think with the cultural side of Lee, I I think the simplest way to explain it is technology is still culture. We're still expressing our culture. It's just a new tool and we've adopted new tools along the last 80,000 years to express our cultures. And this is just another iteration of that.
No, I Well, you're right. It is just a tool, but I think you underscell the impact you can have by just pushing that forward and and kind of creating that that uh momentum that's required to make it happen. So, um, which is pretty amazing. And then being involved in the WF. So, great stuff. So, look, I I we want to get on to the AI stuff. The only thing I wanted to ask you about because I know, um, it's going to be interesting to the listeners of this is the work you did around Minecraft and and the Naidok, um, organization. So, you want to talk tell us a little about kind of how that came to be and what you what you contributed there?
Yeah. Yeah. So, a step before that was working with you, Lee.
I know that wasn't meat. So, We created this platform, as you know, that allows people to easily produce augmented reality content. Um, and part of that was wrapping a curriculum around it and delivering it into schools because I got to the point two years ago with you and we decided that uh it's not good enough for me to just create content for people. We need to really share the process of creating content for themselves and being able to express all different cultures through this medium. So, we built a platform that allowed that and we put a curriculum around it and part of the curriculum was using Minecraft Education Edition. Um because the the the way that we create augmented reality is to create a threedimensional model and then we need something to put that three-dimensional model in. We wanted to represent country. Um and a a great way of doing that was in Minecraft where people could build out country and then they could take a three-dimensional structure block from that and that could form the basis of the connection to country in the AR exp. experience. Um, and Minecraft heard about this and contacted us last year and said, "Do you want to run a national indigenous Minecraft education challenge?" And we said, "Yes, how do we do this?"
Yeah, of course we want to work with you, but oh my gosh, there's 300 nations of people in Australia. We all have different cultures. We all have different languages. We all have different relationships with technology. Like, how are we going to make this work? So, we ended up landing on a pilot where we would work with 25 schools um and we would go through the a mini version of the indigital schools program which included the Minecraft education edition um and there would be prizes and we ran it as first peoples designing and developing and delivering this challenge. Um you know and it wasn't without its hurdles like we had different ideas about how we wanted to do this and where we wanted to work and Um some of those places include we we went and delivered it at Arab Island in the Toristra Islands. Um Brun Island um between Australia and Antarctica. We delivered it in the territory.
Um we really wanted to test this model of being able to work in technologies where people had low internet bandwidth um limited access to technology um and who potentially hadn't seen augmented reality before. Um so we did that. We brought on a team to do that. Um, a phenomenal team of indigenous people and we just we just did it. Um, and then we got the support of the National NATO committee. Um, and we got the support of the National Library of Australia and Microsoft and Telster Foundation and uh, it was just the most perfect relationship um, that we formed um, with also indigenous digital excellence in Redfan. So
and the interesting thing for me as well just just a thought as you're talking there is there's a pivot, isn't it? Cuz I know one of your kind of mantras is about that skilling element and there's a bit like your your conversation earlier on about seeing pieces of indigenous heritage and saying it's a certain amount of years old or whatever. Where's the balance or how do you flip from educating everybody about um indigenous culture to then also supporting indigenous culture itself and the people inside those rural communities to get into digital technologies.
Well, I think what we not I think I know this is how we do it. We want to teach digital skills through a cultural lens. And so, everyone gets to do the digital skills, but also everyone gets to learn uh their local community language, their local community knowledge, and their local community law. And we do that by partnering with knowledge holders in the community and the school together.
Um so that the the community members co-design the program for that particular school. Um, and then they run usually over a term. Um, so the elders, this is a really short version of what happens, but elders uh or community language uh leaders or the most appropriate people in the community uh will work with teachers. They will uh share story. Uh they'll share language and they really direct um the content of what the students are going going to be working with. So an example in Governor Sterling they talked about u the waggle which is the uh rainbow serpent creation story of the swan river um and the children uh grab hold of something in that story that resonates with them um and then we work through the digital skills process to go from creating 3D model um rigging and rigging an animation and audio recording of language and then putting it uh Minecraft and then putting it into augmented reality.
Ah I see. See? Yes. So, it is it's all connected in that way, I suppose. So, you're scaling up the communities at the same time as educating. So, it's all embedded in in the entire process. That's fascinating.
H I was going to say it's like weaving a basket, Dan. So, it's got we we looked at all the threads of what would make this a powerful and empowering program for everybody. And there's, you know, the cultural threads of language, law, and knowledge. There's the cultural thread of language, the cultural threat of what does technology look like when it's culturally built or influenced, which is like our platform. And then there's the digital skills element, the fourth industrial revolution element. We want our kids to be prepared to go into the jobs of the future. And we also want them to prepare be prepared to be great digital citizens in their communities. Um, so that part and we when we were pulling that thread of this basket we were weaving, we were looking at who else needs to be in this project. So there is a direct link between what the students are doing and future job opportunities. So in Governor Sterling um the Western Australian Police Force and Walle Engineering got involved in the program um to sponsor students to go through it because they're 3D modeling, right? So if you're an engineering firm, it's obvious what the links are between that skill and engineering.
I think I I find it, you know, you talk about these things and it's amazing how far you've come on with the things you've done and and you have managed to uncover. But I guess the flip side of it is what it also de demonstrates is just how far we've got to go. You know, you see how much there is to be done and you recognize the the small steps. But surely does that I mean when you look at the the road in front of you and you think about how much more there is to go, does it kind of inspire you or does it is it daunting to you to think about just the journey ahead of you?
I'm really excited by it because it's not just me um anymore talking about this. There's our amazing team of people like Matthew Hein man who is a literature man who's an IT specialist. There's um Chelsea Brand who is a partnerships and like expert in building cultural relationships. There's Cassandra Row who's an amazingly talented Cabrial woman who's supporting the teachers through this process. There's Peter Roland from uh uh from Manguteri in Birdsville who's another incredible um uh she's an emerging elder. So she's uh she's making fantastic connections with her people and people in Queensland. So, we've got this phenomenal team. Um, and of course,
we're all supported by Joe, who's this incredible nuts and bolts thinker, um, doing this as well. And the ideas that the team are bringing forward for moving us forward are really exciting. And then we've got the next people like our influencers and our supporters and organizations that have believed in us since the start. Like, we've got this incredible ecosystem that we work inside. now to really propel this and that's exciting and that's energizing for me. Um
so so when you when you talk it's just amazing to you talk about the future in that in that positive line and the way you've really thoughtfully lined up partners with you to make this scalable because there's a lot of different companies in Australia that are trying their hardest s to support you know whether it's indigenous skills or whether it's women in technology And scale has always been their problem because it's trying to get everybody together to support that common cause to get at scale. But it's interesting when you were talking there and you had all these ideas going forward when we look at the AI element to the things that um you you might be doing. What what kind of technologies what does AI mean to um the indigenous communities in you know and I mean generally from your lens what what what excites you about AI in the projects that you were doing?
Well I think the first thing is I love what Brett Levy says about AI, he's like it's Aboriginal intelligence. So, but yeah, this is this is yeah, we've always been here. But like I guess breaking down AI into the different types of technology that represent AI like search and planning and reasoning and knowledge creation and perception and vision and move and manipulate and natural language processing and down to machine learning. These are all things that we do in our cultures. and we've always done in our cultures. Um, so every part of traditional knowledge systems and our connection to country is woven into each of these types of technologies. And I think we're only really scratching the surface about what the potential is when we combine cultural knowledge systems that are 80,000 plus years old with designing the future. And I think it would be such a shame and a missed opportunity for humanity if we went ahead and continue to just develop these technologies without having first peoples around the table when they're being built. Um because not only do we have agency over our future, uh we also have phenomenal knowledge about uh systems and systems thinking and we have a lot to contribute to developing AI um technologies and technology stacks. So that's kind of where we're angling our program is we want to inspire these kids sitting in the classrooms of today to be part of building that future now and I don't think we need to wait for them to graduate from year 12.
Yeah, ve very true and and I think you know that's evident with all the projects you're doing in Minecraft right because there's there's such a range of uh students that are being involved in that and sometimes even people think oh you know Minecraft you know going up to year 12 and beyond you know we see people in university using Minecraft as a vehicle to express stories and it is it's phenomenal the stuff you're doing and in terms of the AI itself you know you mentioned like multiple modes of AI there around like natural language processing, you know, when you're thinking about those, is there anything that jumps out? Any projects that jump out at you? Because cuz for me, I know I've I've heard a couple of projects about people trying to save languages and things like that using AI. Are there things are there things that we're on the cusp of with AI that are going to be really revolutionary in that area, do you think?
H definitely. Um something that something that we're combining is obviously like volume capture and um natural language processing. So I guess the first iteration of that was a message stick that we did uh where you would hold the device over the message stick and it would recognize so using vision there to recognize the message stick and then we're using three-dimensional animation to bring uh the aunties forward in your field of view. So there's the augmented reality stage there and then the computer is programmed to listen to the questions that you're asking. the aunties in their digital format. And so that's the natural language processing and the application is recognizing what you're asking and then we're translating that into data language. So the aunties speak to you in language first and then we're using a conversion software to put it in English. So
well well that that schooled me then very quickly on the integration of uh artificial intellig Yeah. Because I think that's the thing isn't it? It's about the integration of those technologies. It's when we see I think when I looked at hollow lens first, it was that that was pretty cool on its own, but then it's when you overlay other um cognitive services over the top, it gets very very interesting. So those projects sound amazing. How how do you go about then uh thinking about what to work on next because there's so many technologies, you know, as you know, from just from a Microsoft point of view, things are happening now as we speak, you know, and you you know, like with hollow lens, you'll see something and go, "Wow, have you have you got a have you got a kind of laundry list of things you need to do.
Yeah, of course. Um, yeah. Well, yes and no. So, I guess the first question I always ask is what's the immediate need for us culturally um to do and there's a few priorities there. There's language learning. So, I am I come from a community of direct speakers and we have very few direct speakers that are fluent. Um, and something that I'm working on and my capstone project at the moment is creating a holographic um volutric capture of one of our elders and teaching language to that hologram. So imagine uh putting hollow lens on and you've got a holographic auntie who's teaching you language. And the reason that this has been in my mind for four years now is that our languages as I'm learning our language as an adult, which is harder than learning it as a kid, I notice how much of our language is not just oral. It's not just words. It's facial expressions. It's the way that we move our mouths. It's the
the where we place our tongue in our mouth. It's the the hand gestures and the other body language that we use as well. So, learning language has been difficult for me because we're just trying to learn this like pronunciation part which is really the tip of the iceberg and how we express our cultures. And of course, then you've got cultural dance. Um, dance is like not just a dance. Like if you're doing a cultural dance, it's teaching you what are you looking for when you're on the hunt or what like what's coming into season and what does that mean for what you harvest? Like it's just a different expression of of how we translate knowledge about how to live um appropriately on our country. So that's why the hologram's important. Um, and I am talking a lot about the holog cuz I'm manifesting it right now because they're very expensive to create.
Yeah. No, absolutely.
I I remember what was it when we started talking about some of the work we were doing before, Michaela, on the hollow lens ideas. If you remember the idea of having that sort of augmented experience with that an auntie coming to tell you about something or in in in language as well and it was very hard technically because it was the AI involved, the language translation, the physicality, the holograms and everything else with it. So, it's great that you're getting to at least you have to do it now for your capstone. That's great.
Well, I'm I'm just like, what is the MVP for this? So, I can explain what we're trying to achieve and then get some more support to actually build the proper one. But,
you know, time time is precious, too. And I I've always got this thing in my mind about what is more important. Is it more important to do a highfidelity capture and get it right or do we just go with what we've got at the budget that we've got and just just try it? Yeah, absolutely.
I was well I was just going to say I wanted the whole idea you said about the physicality of conversation the fact that when you speak it's more than just the words that come out of your mouth. That's an interesting challenge for AI in general because of course when we tilt it to intelligent systems computers if it's a computer it's a very unintelligible interface. It's a a monitor looking at you or a phone looking at you or at very best a you know some kind of robotic device. So do you see that as really being a One of the big barriers for AI's ability to communicate with humans is the fact that it needs to have a a human-like expression to the way it speaks, not just the words it says.
Yeah. Well, that's why I think a volutric capture is the best way to do it at the moment. Um, so we're actually capturing Auntie doing these things in a threedimensional video. Um, and then programming that video to do the expressions. So, it's we're not relying on like a deep fake technology for example to
right
to do it that it will go that way eventually. Um but also um I've been on this journey before when doing augmented reality in 2012 when the marketplace wasn't ready for that for what we produced and we've had to really wait 9 years for people to go oh that's a great idea. Um so I know with this holographic technology because of the price point because of people's access to this kind of technology at the moment it's going to be a long time before um people really understand what we're trying to do which is part of the problem being an innovator.
Absolutely. So just go back to that point you mentioned there about the deep fake. So um when you when you're talking about the voluometric capture you mean recording you know the entire you know person and what they're saying and everything they do and they they the attributes they move in. So
I'm assuming that's what it is anyway as you explain it so well. But so then when you're thinking about a deep fake Um that that's quite interesting, isn't it? Because AI can fill in some of the gaps but then maybe not as accurate or mislead the viewer in some particular ways. Where do you see that that going? What can you explain a little bit more about your thought processes on that?
Ah yeah, about deep fakes. So we're already seeing deep fake technologies and some of the implications of deep fakes. Um
yeah,
but when I first saw deep fakes last year, I was like, hmm. This means that we don't actually need the massive price tag to create threedimensional content. And I did experiment. Um so my friend Hali um in Los Angeles has this company Pinscreen that specializes in deep fake technology. And I was able to bring one of my ancestors uh into a three-dimensional being using his technology um from a painting of her that was done in the 1800s.
Wow.
Yeah. I have to tell you it was was very confronting because when you see your ancestors in two dimensions, your brain is really trying to construct what it looks like in 3D. And the way the computer program put her together in 3D was so lifelike. And for the first time, I'm seeing my ancestor in a side on view and from behind her and she was standing in my living room and it was this moment of I I felt like I I could I could literally reach out and touch her and then wow
I just got completely overwhelmed because then I was like this is just light. It's not there's really no more substance to her than she is represented in 2D. But I had all these emotions triggered in me which is really
it's amazing.
I was going to say it's amazing how the brain fills in those gaps because you know that the photo only has that front on image that the painting but everything behind that has been filled in by AI. You know, the
the hairs on the back of her neck or anything like that. It's all just been filled in. But your brain accepts it.
And in some ways, deep fakes, I think the name is probably going to kill us because it's there's amazing potential for it. It can do these kinds of things. But of course, we associate it with, you know, a fake video of Donald Trump rapping on YouTube somewhere.
That was fake.
Sorry, D. Maybe not.
But I think when, you know, I think we've got to be careful, haven't we, when when we start I think there's an ethical issue just because we can bring an auntie for example to life. When you put AI and the algorithms in place then there are elements that we've talked about in this podcast today that'll be lost. So if the algorithm is incorrect or not being correctly coded by somebody from with an indigenous background and understanding the subtleties of the languages then things can be preserved or preserved incorrectly right and you could quite easily put the deep fake tech technology against some of the work you were doing, but it wouldn't be as historically and culturally accurate in lots of ways.
100% correct and also a systemic problem since we first started writing things down, right?
So, I guess a lot of like genealogy, that's an example of, you know, maybe there was a third person in a relationship in 191, uh, who wasn't recorded as the parent. And we go back there these historical records and go, "Oh, that was my ancestors like we we already have these problems and I don't think we're going to solve it with deep fake technologies. I think they're just going to be replicating issues that we've always faced as people who have been recorded. The difference I hope is that our people are the ones driving the creation and collection of this content because we were always observed by third parties before who were making the records.
And I I suppose a I suppose a secondary although it's about educ ating people about indigenous communities and like you said there's 300 different types of peoples from different areas and different communities in Australia like you're also putting those on record and storing like historical languages and things like that before some areas die out and things like that. So have you have you thought about is it a kind of angle you're using to kind of preserve other things? Are you using using your power within digital to try to capture as much as you can? Yeah, but only where there's free, prime, and informed consent from the communities that we work with. And they have absolute autonomy and agency over what's created. And some communities are like, "No thanks. We don't want to do this." And that's totally okay. We're we've just provided a platform and a way of being able to do this if people want to do it. Um we No one has said no yet, but I'm I'm sure there'll be places around the world Yeah. That are like
it's the trust you want to you have to gain and build and earn trust I assume when you when you take these propositions to communities.
Yeah. Yeah. I guess it's trust but it's also like having um like self-determination about how you want to represent your culture as well. And people um there's some cultures that are not into technology and will never be and that's totally okay. Like I've worked with communities in the Amazon rainforest who struggle with should we allow the guitar to come into the community because this will totally transform how we express music. So yeah,
that was that was interesting. I was just going to ask then because I know you talked about and you've done a lot of work in the United Nations element with all indigenous communities globally. How how how are things on that scale with technology? What what kind of kind of things you seeing there?
Yeah, so I had the chance to speak at the UN um for World Indigenous People's day back in 2019 and what was evident was not people not wanting to do this. It was all the barriers they have to accessing the technology in the first place. So um you know some countries have like totally like ridiculously high taxes on simple technology devices. So they become inaccessible to marginalized people which are usually indigenous and ethnic minority peoples. So getting their hands on the technology to do the work is their first barrier. Um, also the internet like
internet's really important for AI. Um, so if you have low bandwidth internet or no internet, um, then that's a massive barrier as well. But yeah, there's there's a lot of technology barriers. And then if you haven't if you don't have anyone in your community that's been able to transcend either of those two barriers and actually learn it, There may only be like a handful of people in the community that understand what it is and there'll probably not be too many people who have a tertiary degree that can really help elders for example understand what's under the hood. And that's what we like to do when we're working with communities is let community fully understand the technology stack about where their data is, who owns it, what's going to happen to it, how it's expressed, where it's expressed, and let them make a self-determined um decision about being involved.
Fantastic.
So, so
you just every time I think I've just got enough out of Michaela and I've learned enough now, my brain's full like I need to walk away. This just throws another one in there. You just like, you know, that's another interesting point of view on the world. But that's what you bring me. You just have a point of view. And maybe that's it's quite unique how you see the opportunities and the challenges all in one, but you don't get deterred by the challenge. You see the opportunity so well. Yeah. Well, you know, I think I'm always thinking and I'm always encouraging my girls to think about what kind of ancestors we want to be to our descendants. And I I've been in the place where we don't have direct connection with our like I don't know what my songs sounded like because no one sung them for two generations before me. And I'm thinking about when we're creating this stuff today, how will my descendants and my daughter's descendants uh find this information and have some conction connection back to who we were as people and how we viewed the world.
That's a that's a really good way for me to ask you one of the wrap-up questions I wanted to get to you which was because you talked about your girls a few times and you know obviously very important to you. So your girls are going to grow up in a very different world to the world that we grew up in and to the world that our parents grew up in their world will be driven by technology by AI by social context that is different to the way we see social context. So what advice what advice do you give to your children in thinking about the world they're going to grow up into and and how do you guide them in that future?
Yeah, at the moment I'm talking to my oldest daughter Amy about this a lot because she's a new year 10. Um she's got some decisions to make about the last two years of high school and where she what what she wants to do. Um we I look I share research with her and especially research that's done um around the trajectory of jobs and I guess I don't want her to invest heavily in say a degree that where the job might made redundant before she even graduates. So thinking like logically around what are these jobs of the of the future which are really jobs of the present in some places already.
Um
but also thinking about connecting back to country and really understanding um environmentally and culturally what our place in the world is and what she can do to help um help survive really because we're all living in climate change and our children and theirs are going to bear the brunt of a changing climate and that means a whole lot of different things that we haven't had to deal with in our generation. I'm just trying to prepare them for that world um as best I can.
Awesome. It's great great answer.
Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank and thank you so much for joining our podcast today. You we put loads of show notes in because you got so many interesting uh projects you're doing that we want all the listeners to kind of dial into and and support where they can and and get involved. D with and the the impact you're having across cultural Australia and the indigenous peoples and the support you're giving people with their skills and and everybody understanding about this fantastic country we live in. Thank you so much on behalf of everybody. It's amazing.
Yeah. Thanks for your support along the way. This is not possible by one person alone. We we have an entire network of people including yourselves that help us and champion our work and give us platforms to talk about it. And we're really appreciate your support.
Nice to meet you.
Cuz it take it takes a village to raise a child, is it? That's what we're doing.
It does. Let's just let's just not build Frankensteines. That's what we do.
Or deep fix.
Oh, good. Good fakes. Not deep. Yeah. Bad.
Good. Good. Good.
Thanks, you're absolute inspiration, Michaela. Thank you.