By Pita Ligaiula
Pacific newsrooms should not allow dependence on overseas artificial intelligence companies to undermine editorial independence, says Pasifika AI creator and Kanaky Tech founder Kevyn Wahuzue.
Wahuzue told PACNEWS that while most AI systems used in the Pacific are developed outside the region, news organisations can still control how much they depend on those platforms.
“Start by being honest: almost every AI tool, including the models Pasifika AI runs on, is built outside the region. I don’t pretend otherwise. What you control is how dependent you become,” he said.
Wahuzue said newsrooms should avoid relying on a single AI provider because companies can change their pricing, rules or technology with little notice.
“Never build on a single provider,” he said.
He said his own experience with Pasifika AI had shown the risks of relying on one model.
“This month alone I had to change the main model behind Pasifika AI because the one I used couldn’t write Pacific languages properly,” Wahuzue said.
For Pacific media organisations, he said AI should remain a tool rather than becoming part of the editorial decision-making process.
“If a company changes its prices, its rules or its model tomorrow, you should still be able to publish,” he said.
Wahuzue also urged newsrooms to retain control of their archives, data and workflows rather than placing them entirely inside third-party AI platforms.
“Keep your archive, your data and your workflow on your side, not inside someone else’s product,” he said.
He said editors must also be alert to the way AI tools can shape journalism through their built-in rules and assumptions.
“And never let a tool’s defaults become your editorial line: what it refuses to discuss, how it frames a story, which sources it trusts.
“Those are editorial decisions. They belong to editors,” he told PACNEWS.
Wahuzue said the question of ownership becomes more complicated when Pacific stories, photographs, archives and cultural knowledge are used to develop or train AI systems.
“Legally, it’s unsettled, and it depends on the country. The rules were written for a world where copying took effort,” he said.
But he said the ethical position was clearer.
“A photo belongs to the photographer or the newsroom. A story belongs to the outlet that published it,” Wahuzue told PACNEWS.
He said cultural knowledge should remain under the control of the communities from which it originates, regardless of where that knowledge is recorded or stored.
“Cultural knowledge belongs to the people it comes from, even when someone else recorded it, even when it sits in a museum overseas,” he said.
Wahuzue pointed to Article 31 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which recognises Indigenous peoples’ rights over their cultural heritage and traditional knowledge.
He also cited work by Te Mana Raraunga in Aotearoa New Zealand on Māori data sovereignty as an example of how Indigenous data rights can be addressed in practice.
For Pacific newsrooms, Wahuzue said the first step was to establish exactly what their archives contain and determine how that material can be used.
“Know what’s in your archive, decide who can use it and on what terms, and don’t let it be taken by default,” he told PACNEWS.
“Your archive is the region’s memory. It shouldn’t be free training data for anyone who asks,” he said..
