Saturday Morning for Saturday 1 April 2023

8.10 Brian Christian: AI’s ethical alignment problem 

This week Elon Musk and Apple's co founder Steve Wosniak were among signatories to an open letter calling for a six-month pause in the training of systems more powerful than GPT-4. They're part of a growing chorus worried that the unchecked speed of AI development could result in unintended harm.

Computer scientist and author Brian Christian writes about one of the fundamental problems of AI development in his book The Alignment Problem: how do we ensure machine learning systems represent the best human values rather than magnify the worst?

Christian is also the bestselling author of Algorithms to Live By (with Tom Griffiths), and The Most Human Human. He holds degrees in philosophy, computer science, and poetry and is a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.

 

8.40 Simon Hall: creating NZ’s largest private conservation estate 

Simon Hall (Ngāti Kahungunu) has spent two decades channelling the success of family business Tasti Foods into conservation.

Hall has put nearly $12 million of profit into what has become New Zealand’s largest private conservation project. The Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust is re-establishing native New Zealand plants and animals at risk of extinction.

Hall has purchased five significant wilderness blocks totalling 24,000 hectares. Hall carries out a range of projects, including setting a record last season for releasing 94 kiwi chicks into the wild.

Simon Hall was a finalist in the 2023 New Zealand Environmental Hero of the Year Award, as part of this year's New Zealander of the Year accolades. A guest on last week's show, Dr Ellen Nelson won the Local hero of the Year Award. You can hear the interview with her here.

 

9.05 Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai: telling the Vietnamese stories behind and beyond the war

Vietnamese author Dr Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s Dust Child tackles the difficult subject of Amerasian children, left behind when the American military fled after the Vietnam War. 

In this, Quế Mai’s second novel past and present come together. In 1969, we follow the story of two sisters Trang and Quỳnh becoming ‘bar girls’ in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) and today, those searching to reclaim their stories.
 
With debut novel The Mountains Sing, Quế Mai became the first Vietnamese citizen to have fiction published in English to international acclaim. Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai will be at Auckland Writers Festival in May

 

9.35 Actor Yvette Parsons: representing real women on screen 

Tāmaki Makaurau actor Yvette Parsons is currently preparing for stage roles as both a snail and a performance art-making goth.

A talented and popular performer, musician and playwright, Parsons more commonly plays unusual but inspiring women, challenging stereotypes. They’re there, in the background holding things together. Recently that’s included Educators school receptionist Sheree and Shortland Street’s Minerva. Film roles include Nude Tuesday and Power of the Dog and she has featured in televisions’ Brokenwood Mysteries, Outrageous Fortune and, as a high priestess, in Wellington Paranormal. 

The Snail appears in Nightsong children’s show The Worm in April, while Parsons as cocreator is ‘Mizery Gutz’ in Goth 2 Aflame, part of the New Zealand International Comedy Festival.  

 

 

10.05 Peter Frankopan: how climate shapes history

Understanding how shifts in the natural world have shaped history might help us navigate the anxious new era of climate change, according to Oxford University historian Peter Frankopan.

His new book The Earth Transformed: An Untold History takes an epic survey, from the beginning of recorded history to the present day, examining how changing climate has driven the rise and fall of civilisations.  

Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University, where he is Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research. He is the author of The Silk Roads: A New History of the World and The New Silk Roads: The Future and Present of the World.

 

11.05 Playing Favourites with Far North Mayor Moko Tepania

In October last year, at the tender age of 31, Moko Tepania (Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa, Te Rarawa) made history by becoming the first Māori mayor of the Far North.

Tepania is on a mission to change the culture of local body government and to advocate for his often overlooked region.

A passionate kura kaupapa teacher before donning his “mayor bling bling”, he still visits his former students weekly.

He joins Kim to share some of his favourite waiata.

 

Books mentioned in this show

The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values
By Brian Christian
ISBN: 9781786494313
Published by Atlantic

The Earth Transformed - An Untold History
by Peter Frankopan
ISBN: 9781526622587
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing

Dust Child  
By Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
ISBN: 1643752758
Published by Algonquin Books

Songs featured in this show:

Black Perch
Sun Kil Moon
Played art 10.55am

Nō Te Tai Tokerau, Ngāpuhi nui tonu e
Hātea Kapa Haka
Played at 11.15am

7
Prince
Played at 11.25am

Menemene
Rei
Played at 11.35am

Whakahonohono Mai
1814
Played at 11.45am