Sacred Data and AI - An Indigenous Perspective

NOTE - THIS MEETUP IS VIRTUAL AND WILL BE CONDUCTED ONLINE WITH EFF-AUSTIN'S ZOOM ACCOUNT. To join the meetup, RSVP to this event, and then click the link that you will be shown upon RSVPing. The meeting room passcode is 980511.

Our speakers this month and Michael and Caroline Running Wolf.

Michael Running Wolf was raised in a rural village in Montana with intermittent water and electricity with grandparents who only spoke their tribal languages, Cheyenne and Lakota. These languages, like many other indigenous languages, are near extinction. It is through this lens, combined with his Masters of Science in Computer Science and professional experiences with Amazon, IBM, AT&T Wireless and Lawrence Livermore National Lab that he found his true passion: endangered indigenous language revitalization using XR (AR/VR) technology. Michael now works to strengthen the ecology of thought represented by indigenous languages through the intersection of Virtual / Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence.

Caroline Running Wolf (Apsáalooke), née Old Coyote, is a multilingual Cultural Acclimation Artist dedicated to supporting Indigenous language and culture vitality. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Anthropology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Her research explores potential applications of immersive technologies (AR/VR/XR) and artificial intelligence to effectively enhance Indigenous language and culture reclamation. She is also passionate about Indigenous data sovereignty and AI ethics.

This talk is an introduction to the intersection of revitalizing sacred knowledge through New Media and exploitation of this data. For centuries Indigenous Peoples of the Americas have resisted the loss of their land, technology, and cultural knowledge. This resistance has been enabled by vibrant cultural protocols, unique to each tribal nation, which controls the sharing of, and limits access to sacred knowledge. Technology has made preserving and presenting this information in new ways easy, but there is a tension between reigniting ancient knowledge and mediums that allow uncontrollable exploitation of this data. New Media opens a new path for revitalizing and sharing heritage, but creating Indigenous cultural experiences requires special care to avoid exploitative behavior.

From our friends at Make Every Media: Make Every Media's Virtual Media Lounge is opening its digital doors to EFF-Austin for a post-meetup virtual bar/happy hour! Decidedly NOT zoom, this spatial video conferencing platform is the closest / most accessible thing we've found so far to simulating an in-person kind of presence. With freedom of movement, self-initiated private spaces, interactive party games and more, this lounge is best experienced in a Chrome Browser on your computer.

Click the link https://gather.town/i/h93jLS2l, allow gather to use your camera and microphone, choose an avatar, and then use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move your avatar around the space until you find a friend and see their videos pop up! Certain objects will highlight as you approach them. Press the X key on your keyboard to interact with these games, whiteboards, or google docs. If you're having trouble getting your camera or audio to work--try refreshing the browser 🙂 For a more in-depth guide to using our digital space: https://tinyurl.com/MEM-gathering

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