Hi, hello, hello everyone and a very good evening here from Singapore and you know we share the same time zone with Malaysia, Alina and I we are in the same time zone and of course you know friends from Myanmar and Australia so before that you know I'm very happy to be here thank you so much to Arts Equator for organising this very important conversation and just to introduce myself my name is Amin Farid, I'm a practitioner researcher of the Malay Arts here in Singapore and the region and also the joint artistic director of Bumi Collective and with me today allow me to introduce our three panellists who you know are very eager to share about the perspective on this topic Firstly we have Mr Tui, he's a puppeteer from Myanmar and is the founder of Tui U Nyan Ma Traditional Puppet Theatre and he is doing puppetry both for tourism entertainment and education for the younger practitioners Next we have Alina Murang, she is a Sape musician from Sarawak, Malaysia and the Sape is a lute instrument of the Orangulu people of Borneo she works on music and video production with careful thought in honouring cultural heritage in the context of contemporary times and last but certainly not the least we have Jacob Bum he's a Melbourne born and raised artist of the Narangah and Coroner Nations South Australia he is a multidisciplinary theatre maker and choreographer creating work for stage, screen, film, public events and festivals so yes we are all gathered here today to have this conversation as what Nabilah have said about the traditional arts, the forgotten COVID casualty I think just a preamble, we are talking specifically about the COVID circumstance and how this is affecting traditional artists we have seen a lot of support or non-support coming from different sectors and this is something worthy for us to have a conversation today so before we kickstart this conversation I would like to ask this very simple question to three of my fellow colleagues here and it's a question that is specifically about the current times how has COVID-19 specifically affected our practice and livelihoods as artists and how has it affected traditional arts communities in general so maybe to start this conversation going and we also encourage interdisciplinary cross national perspectives as well probably I would like to invite Jacob first to start off this conversation so how has the COVID-19 affected traditional artists or yourself as an artist yes good evening thank you everyone for having me here so I do I come from the Norungo Gala Nations I work both in contemporary and traditional arts for us here in Australia Aboriginal communities particularly regional and remote area communities that are practicing traditional arts and craft really a lot of a lot of what has happened to Aboriginal communities since COVID has kicked in is practice has ceased because the government has forcibly locked down remote area Aboriginal communities originally against their will but so I'm doing a project with my own family who are in a remote area in South Australia so I've been calling my uncles and my aunts for the last almost four months five months when COVID first happened they'd locked down the government had locked down the community but nobody had planned or thought through how they were going to get essential services like food into those communities so practice or creative practice even practicing traditional arts and culture has been the last thing on people's minds things like caring for elders not starving they've been the most pressing issues all right thank you so much for that Jacob and probably you know Alina you know your perspective on this current times as well so for me how the lockdown affected my practice was primarily through a lot of shows being cancelled but I mean that goes for any musician really around the world and I think it's really affected traditional practitioners in the rural areas I'm based in Kuala Lumpur so for me connection wasn't too bad well connection was good actually but then there's a lot of artists that live in the rural areas some very rural some not even that rural who number one didn't have a great access to the internet and number two if they did sometimes they don't know how to use it to you know in this time to do online shows and stuff like that and as well for me I don't know when I can next go back to the kampong or to the village to do my documentation to do my research with the elders and you know even just in the short time of lockdown I think like two months we've had like three elders leave already so for me the documentation part is very urgent and I don't know when I can go back because you know even if I if I'm allowed to travel I'm not sure if I should in case you know I'm carrying I'm a carrier yeah thank you thank you Alina and Mr Tweet do you your perspective please I am Mr Tweet or driver Tweet not director not founder of the Papadita because now I'm doing delivery job today I came back early for this meeting so we are relying 100% for tourism so before COVID-19 my living room my house is full of visitors so our incomes cover a span of my children also my kitchen but when the COVID starts the tourism to the least of or let's say zero so there was no visitor so I had to change my daily earning to get so because of my Facebook friends they are doing online shopping and then they gave me job then we deliver things around the city so this is what in Myanmar and what Papadita are now doing in Myanmar I think what we can hear from you know just this brief exchange so far is you know the idea of you know traditional arts communities in rural communities that have yet to receive attention or at least proper support so maybe I would like to also ask if you know if any of you can share whether there are any top-down assistance or programs that are coming from the government or you know coming from agencies to help these communities if anybody would like to respond yes so there's been one initiative here in Australia the Australia Council for the Arts which is our major federal arts funding body had done an emergency reshuffle of public monies of funding grants to get emergency grants out to a whole bunch of artists initially it was going to contemporary arts only but recently the Australia Council had just given created a fund called Cherish now under Cherish one of those one of those branches one of the things that you could apply for was something called the Living Libraries so Alina this would have applied to you completely like really about your practice because under Living Libraries it was all about giving people funding to go and document elders knowledge because one thing that we've all recognised with this virus is that it has attacked our elders so at least the Australia Council had a small grant a small funding opportunity that realised the importance of elders knowledge so you could apply for funding to go and archive and document that's the Cherish fund I wish we had that here and Alina probably you can share a little bit about whether there are such programmes there are programmes to support the arts here largely from Chandana not specifically for traditional arts it would be for music or for visual arts for example and there's also a new programme for the Ministry of Communications and Culture if I'm not mistaken it's more focused on digital support so nothing really specifically for traditional arts there are opportunities I think that's quite true too because sometimes when we think of the arts as a monolith we assume that all the money that goes to the arts is for the arts but at times we also forget that certain arts would require different needs and different activities to help them survive so this is definitely a problem and that's why we're talking about it as a forgotten casualty because it's not something that is specifically different and a lot like what Jacob said sometimes it's focus mostly for contemporary arts and forgetting that some of these art forms are livelihoods arts in itself is also very much culture and what Jacob was also saying about elders as living heritage to record I think I want to ask Mr Tui I look at you as an elder of your form are there agencies to support you and as your knowledge as elder? In Myanmar there are associations called Myanmar Theatre Association they support a little bit but not by government and also they are supported by to the SME by the Ministry of Tourism but we are not like not register SME or we are not paying test to the government so we are not entitled to get the law for SME and Mr Tui what I understand you are very dependent on tourism the tourism sector and now because there hasn't been a lot of tourists coming in you have also shared that you had to change your career somewhat into a deliveryman has there been any talks or in helping from the tourism sector to assist in any way? I think for tourists there are restrictions to travel even in Myanmar but I have an audience who are working in Myanmar like an embassy or organization so they like to visit to my theatre but there is a restriction by the government stay at the end of this month so I cannot start again but maybe in next month we can start our performance again so Mr Tui has shared a little bit about theatrical collectives to assist more bottom-up approach bottom-up approach so Alina and Jacob do you have any such bottom-up approaches coming from artist communities or from ordinary citizens? actually I just wanted to ask Mr Tui a question sure Mr Tui during lockdown have you done any videos of your puppet theatre or any videoing of the live show does anybody come and help you to do that so people around the world can see your puppet theatre? actually not because according to my experience streaming like Myanmar traditional puppet theatre is not popular and also no audience that is why I did not try to broadcast live or report on YouTube as well because you need the audience yes oh that's very interesting because in Myanmar the traditional arts are very declining after 1988 but I took a revolution so we are the puppet shows or traditional performance are only a question for tourists or foreigners that is a bigger challenge to meet my people that is why sometime before covid I'm trying to go to school and rural area to make a puppet education to the younger generation but now we are restricted for travelling so I can do elsewhere I would just also like to I wonder Mr Tui do you also have younger appearances who you know specifically mentor for your traditional art? yes I am very lucky man when I started my theatre in 2006 last 14 years my youngest son was only 2 years old and my elder daughter was 9 years old they didn't know about tradition of puppet 3 they only just playing with puppets but luckily after they growing up they are willing to learn and now my son is 16 and my daughter is 23 they are puppeteer of my group so also they are friends they came to my house and they learn together so I am sharing our tradition of puppet 3 to younger generation thank you Mr Tui Alina probably you know the question that you were directing you directed to Mr Tui is this something that you also doing on your own as an artist? yeah so when I was very quick to get on my Instagram Live to do I called them soundbugs the puppet used to be used for healing for like meditation but it was the first time I've ever gone on Instagram Live and I found it very very very strange but the reception was very good I did it quite often and then Facebook lives but just straight from my phone and when was it strange? was it because you don't know? you are like sitting in your living room playing and singing to your phone this tiny thing in front of you that's like put up against a glass like that and you are sitting at it interacting with the phone it's very strange stop it music is like very slow and very calming and you kind of like finish the song and you are just in your living room and you know people are chatting back at you it's just it's very strange but yeah I think we will probably be doing this for a while more I got used to it and do you have artist communities that are helping supporting one another in this period? in Kuala Lumpur in particular I was very proud and impressed of all the musicians and music producers because they were very quick to respond to lockdown doing collaborations online shows so yeah it was very very nice to see people coming together even people that would usually be competitive would be working together that was really nice wonderful sense of community there and Jacob do you like to share anything? yeah one of the wonderful things that have come out of this is a new grassroots collective called the Regional Dance Alliance which is a collective of independent artists Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists that are working in regional and remote areas around Australia we work with and for traditional custodians with elders with communities in the preservation and maintenance of culture and cultural arts as well as intergenerational practice as well as contemporary First Nations creative expression so a lot of us are working in silos a lot of us work alone in those communities and one of the wonderful things that has happened out of this is that a lot of us have come together to rely on each other for support which has then turned into a new grassroots collective called the Regional Dance Alliance which is also filling a gap in terms of advocacy because what we have found is a lot of the voices of traditional communities have been left out of arts advocacy therefore that's why you see a gap in the funding pools of the support so the Regional Dance Alliance has not only become a support network for other artists but it's also become an essential voice in advocacy for traditional arts and I'm just wondering because Australia has a good frame somewhat good framework for the arts I'm just wondering like for friends in Myanmar and Malaysia because sometimes we are hearing that the arts is sometimes put under tourism and that might not fully reflect or fully support the arts in what we how we would like it to be so do you have any comments on that any of our friends here in terms of traditional arts and culture coming under a banner of tourism here in Australia I think that's where a lot of our remote areas definitely make make money and it's definitely through small business practice and social enterprise it's more of a business model rather than one of the publicly funded arts models that most of us have become used to since the creation of the Australia Council for the Arts really has only been around since the 1970s and in that time I've been fortunate to have been brought up in an era where it's just normal for me to think that the government support arts activity that's what I've grown up with but what we've seen recently with a liberal government and I mean capital L not small L a conservative government is that the funding for arts in this country is becoming less and less and less even more so traditional arts because the the essentially white government here have no respect unless it's for tourism purposes then we can show that we have aborigines to the rest of the world and then put them away okay and Alina do you have anything to comment on that so throughout tourism board supports me quite a bit when it's in line with obviously their aim so I'm very thankful for that however as a musician I would just love to you know be embraced as a musician under the music community rather than under tourism solely because I think under tourism you're kind of especially coming from Borneo it's like really romanticized and you know sometimes I just want to play a bit of rock music or something yeah I think here arts and culture sits under the ministry of tourism arts and culture music has kind of been taken over by the ministry of communications so it's all kind of like patchy here and there Chandana was formed about maybe two three years ago now so that's really helped kind of bring things together but I think there's still a lot that needs to be done but yeah so I've been slowly trying to find my way into that music kind of department or arena and sit like in mainstream music as well so that I can sit with tourism and music I guess hmm okay Mr. Tui do you have anything to comment on there yes for the government I would like to play a little bit loud because Myanmar is not like other countries in the region we have now let's say democratic government but we are the British colony about 100 years and we got independent in 1948 from 1948 to 1962 said this is a parliament democracy government at the time but in 1962 military seized the power and they changed socialist system under the socialist government 26 years from 1962 to 1988 and 1988 there was a political age crisis and in 1922 we had the first election but the party who were in the election was not 100 over military government they took the power and they made the constitution for 17 years 17 and in 2010 they made the second election but the government we are proud let's say socialist government or military government and then 2010 to 2015 we are first democratic government again but they are from military most of them are generous so in Myanmar papacy is an appraisal by the government fine you know this is funny but really happened because 26 years socialist government and 20 years military government and 5 years first elected government but they are the same people just changing their uniforms and they hate an free art because they are named or called puppet government or marionette government or general or president so we have no hope to support by the government because they hate even the what puppetry now we are new government left by lady Aung San Suu Kyi round 15 to 10 now very soon there will be new election so for this government we hope a lot because they are not puppet government not military government so we hope a lot support by the government but they are very busy there are many problems to solve in the country now especially in the western border so government they can even look the culture session not only traditional performing arts so until now we have nothing supported by the government okay thank you Mr. Tui for sharing that historical overview of Myanmar and also Myanmar as a young democratic nation and also the stigma that goes with puppetry because the current government or governments are considered like puppet government and this stigma is I think it's also very evident in some of our cultures where traditional arts at times are seen as outdated or just behind times and I just want to ask also to Alina and Jacob now we are also seeing the fact that a lot of COVID has allowed for artists to go online as we've heard from Alina as well to share their work and I think this is also very much relevant with one of the questions that I'm actually seeing here from Chris who is also asking like if all these traditional forms are going online how do we still maintain that character of traditional arts without losing how it's been practised before so maybe this is something that you grapple with or you know friends within the traditional arts scene has to grapple with this is something that I've been doing for probably 20 or so years is as a person who walks between two worlds so I have a white mother and an Aboriginal father therefore I have a foot in both worlds and I also have a foot in both the contemporary arts and the traditional arts so what I've been doing with a lot of different communities is that because I went to Western Arts University and I also learned a whole bunch of skills there but I also was brought up with traditional I also was taught traditional dance and customs from around the country what I normally do is that I work with youth and with elders at the moment to bring them in through contemporary arts but then through the contemporary arts practice we feed in traditional knowledge and it's a way of kind of disguising because kids now would much rather be on their phone listening to Beyonce seriously so what we do is we bring Beyonce into the space and then we all of a sudden bring a songman or a songwoman into the space so that they're not learning just Beyonce or dance in a song as well so now what we're doing is now that online and so much access to the digital world which in itself raises a whole lot of problems about equity and privilege because we don't have coverage, good coverage everywhere but what we are doing is that we're doing the same thing in terms of creating contemporary arts projects but feeding in traditional knowledge through that, for example the project that I'm working on at the moment which is connecting Songline, a particular Songline from the south to the north of Australia and this is a Songline that follows the tracks of the Dingo the Wild Dog but the Wild Dog is also has its DNA comes from parts of Asia, one of those routes goes through Taiwan introducing a school a primary school of children in Taiwan to a primary school of children where my community is online but they are working with elders in their own communities but then having to jump online and share and then work the elders will tell them stories and then artists will go in and work with painting, sculpture animation, weaving and then the kids will respond to those stories and then jump online and share them between Taiwan and Australia so they're doing contemporary arts practice but as a reflection of what they're learning from elders oh that's wonderful and I think Kathy just shared Jacob's project there on the chat if anyone wants to get to know a little bit more about this Wild Dog project and Elena speak to you Elena because the Wild Dog actually has the song line goes up in through Borneo because I've been working with some with Taiwan also indigenous in Taiwan for the last three years it's been really interesting and Elena your question oh about audiences audiences and whether the traditional song has been altered do you know even the fact of having even a live audience is something that is new to our form of arts because our I don't know if it's same in your languages but we have no word for music and no word for art in our language because they're just functional and you know you weren't like glorified as a musician instead your role was to play music and then the village role was to sing back or the village role was to take trans dancing and you didn't have an audience you didn't have a stage everything was in a circle so even my teacher Matthew now he started performing out there around the 1980s on stage and he was one of the first people to do that and he said it was very hard to make the music relevant to an audience we've also been trying to do that I've been playing for 19 years now so even with going online I think that's just another way of our practice involving you know if we look back to the past we've always just had to evolve if we want to stay relevant so yeah it changes but that's how it is that's why I kind of sometimes struggle with the term traditional because actually we are being contemporary how come violin is not traditional or guitar is not traditional I think when the question was first also shared with me I was wondering also about the term traditional arts I think that's why I say not everyone would identify with the term or would classify their practice as such but I think there is also value in the term because of the needs of certain traditional communities that we might sideline if we just classify them under the arts in general I'm just curious Alina like for the SAPE it's being a musical instrument then we also have to consider the artisans that create the musical instruments do you know whether they how adversely affected they are as well or the good thing is that they've had more time at home to create more of a supply because there was quite a demand for SAPE but the thing is now people don't have spending money to purchase a SAPE so even though people are interested it's considered quite expensive if it's your first SAPE it's a thousand ringgit which is how many dollars I'm not sure 300 sing dollars 350 sing dollars it's not expensive when nobody really has much money and it's your first instrument you can buy a guitar for like $50 or $100 or something so yeah they're making but not easy to sell anybody wants one please drop me a message they look overseas yes I think Alina also has a YouTube channel for us to subscribe too or you know so I stand locked down hacking YouTube like trying to figure the ins and outs of YouTube it's like learning a whole new platform and so I'm being very diligent in creating content and I'm coming out with a new single and music video next week in collaboration so yeah please subscribe wonderful I would like to ask I think this is also relevant to Mr Tui because the reason why I ask the other day when we were having our pre briefing you did show us a little bit of your puppets which are left untouched at this moment I'm also asking about the artisan the people who actually create those puppets do you actually create those puppets yourself sir no because I'm just the founder and director of the puppet group so here in Myanmar there are not so many families left in puppet tree so I think here in Yango only about 5 families in puppet tree doing traditional and 2 of 5 they are puppet makers so they make their puppet and our puppets are not small size about 28 inches, 70 cm and heavy about 3 to 4 kg and the Myanmar tradition is not doing by just one man or one woman we are doing by group 4 or 5 people and the whole group the musicians, the storytellers about 20 artists and the puppets is the overnight that is why I am unable to stream online because we need a big group to perform a traditional puppet show and I wonder whether you have a puppet nearby to show us how it looks like yeah why not okay if you, yes here you can see our puppet is big yes and you keep it in a glass in a glass cabinet no, they are just hanging on strength okay so now I cover with plastic or fabric to avoid dust but today I want to show you and back to the issue about families that are creating these puppets do you know how they are coping or are they also changing careers because of this covid environment maybe I am very glad yeah nothing because in Myanmar I told you the puppets you are doing in the pagoda or temple festival at night the full moon about 4 or 5 days so after 1988 there are very few puppets show in the pagoda festival maybe 2 or 3 times in a year only so that is why before 1988 there are more than 100 families who are working in traditional puppets probably around Myanmar and doing the puppets show in the pagoda festival but after 1988 puppets shows are declined and 2 or 3 puppets shows in a year that is why now just 4 or 5 families are producing puppets and some of them they are producing puppets not for their performance for the tourism they are souvenir small marionettes especially in begang and in mandali so they make very small size puppets not for their performance and send to begang and mandali the main tourist size in Myanmar something like this is totally stop they are not doing anymore okay thank you so much Mr Tui for that I would just like to tell those who are also present here if you have any questions so feel free to populate the chat with those questions I have a question to ask oh okay so I have a question here from Pam okay later I will do that so maybe a question I would like to ask to my fellow panellists here is there is aspirations for us to wait for a post-COVID environment and I really wonder how that would look like and I'm just wondering what is your how do you feel it's best to move forward looking at the types of losses that we are losses and sometimes we can consider some gains as well in this period so what are your takes on your perspective on moving forward dealing with all this circumstances would anyone want to you know question it is it is I don't know okay probably what I can do now probably is Pam who has asked in the chat whether I can share a little bit because I'm also very involved in the tradition arts scene well the Singapore perspective I would say that a lot of times the focus is on arts in general and I've been also questioning a lot about whether there has been efforts to address the issues that traditional artists are going through similar to some of the conversations that we've had so far the traditional arts sometimes for lack of a better way of saying it takes a village to perform or sometimes it needs more than just artists to create that experience that we want to create and also hence we are quite interdependent on one another and sometimes the forgotten casualties are not so much the artists it's also the artisans who are involved in the creation of the costume of the props because they are not in the forefront of presenting themselves so I'm also wondering how such funding that it's given from governments or agencies can address such matters I would say that we are relatively somewhat taken care of to some extent and also because artists in Singapore we are part of the geek economy most parts and as self-employed persons we can tap into different grants but a lot of times because traditional artists might not be like a lot of the veterans and the elders they might not be conversant in English or in dealing with such bureaucratic forms for example so they might have they might not participate or they might not even tap into such resources so now the question is how can we also help in allowing them to understand that these are for them but they just need to do the hard work of applying so I've noticed that happening too amongst my veterans so that in a nutshell is also how I would say COVID has also affected the traditional arts and also moving forward my perspective is personally it's true what Alina said it's such a tough question because we don't want to be too idealistic we don't want to be too idealistic but I think there is also opportunities that we can still tap on and see whether it can it has longevity and sustainability hence traditional artists a lot in Singapore have been going online to share some of the works that they are doing and also because funding has also been very focused on digital arts and hence a lot more digitalisation is happening in the next few months and we're going to see a lot of that in Singapore until December yeah so do you guys have anything to comment with regards to what I have just shared I think it's interesting about the digital space because in one hand it's creating opportunities for connection on the other hand it's also a real threat to the purity of certain practices because when you have to subvert or attract them for an online platform you can choose a lot of the a lot of the spirit that is with them that comes with that practice I think one of the losses that we won't quite know yet and Elena brought it up earlier about being able to travel because we're here in Melbourne where I am we're in our second phase of lockdown because we've just had a spike in coronavirus so I'm supposed to be somewhere else I'm supposed to be on the other side of Australia but I can't go much like Elena to do some documenting and recording of elders so that is one real thing that we can't really tell yet the losses of what that knowledge is going to be at the end of this the other the other big threat is that because we have a conservative government here much like the UK who are all talking about austerity measures austerity austerity austerity everything's being cut cut cut after this what we're looking at is a smaller part of funding for the arts therefore the traditional arts get placed even lower on the run but this has all been the case in Australia pre coronavirus the problems that we're talking about now have already been problems that have existed for many decades and generations so it's interesting that on the one hand we have these grassroots collectives that are looking at providing support and help for each other because what we're finding already is that funding and government structures and bureaucracy have not been helpful why would we expect them to suddenly have an epiphany because we faced a virus together yes that's very good points there sharing about how governments are also managing or at least their treatment towards the arts usually in a lot of cases when nation states are affected the arts will always be the first to receive costs and not seen as viable means to assist in development especially in this period thank you Jacob for that Mr Tui or Alina do you have anything to add to what Jacob has just shared if not it's okay because I think I also like to highlight some of the comments that we are receiving and I think it's also Alina's view that they are also sharing like for example Chris and Irene Chico has also shared about you know about traditional arts being done live and how important that is because if it's not done so somewhat they lose agency because of how it's being depicted or being screened on live and hence it also loses its excitement so maybe Alina or Mr Tui do you have anything to comment on that about live performance yeah I don't disagree with that I think when I said that the way we are playing online and going digital is just a matter of evolving but what choice do we have we can't do live shows and we don't know when is the next time so we have to adapt and evolve but yeah I really miss a live audience and we can't wait to have one but what can we do you know Mr Tui I think you have done so much in trying to create that audience and now you have lost such audience do you miss having a live audience yourself yes I also miss my audience because Yama Babertree is based on music you know a traditional orchestra playing by six very loud and very hard and also storytelling style so Yama traditional Babertree is let's say three in one not only manipulating their puppets but also background traditional music and storytelling is very hard beating so this is not watching online you should watch live performance this is the best so I hope to perform live audience with full orchestra I'm also thinking a lot too about future generations especially those the direct generations that should be this art form is being transmitted to and how live performance itself is also part of that experience in learning the traditional art now Nabilah Said has also provided us with a very interesting question here what does the panel think about this loaded term of casualty is the pandemic showing something really new or is it nearly making more clear how people or government treat traditional arts even pre-COVID what do you want to respond to that maybe I think if I can offer something from what I've heard I think Mr. Tui has provided us a very good night to Myanmar as a young nation as in a young democratic nation and it's very evident as well that government policy and how their treatment towards the arts were already present before COVID and now because COVID has happened he has also I think Mr. Tui has also shared that there has not been any government funding or government support at all even in this very difficult circumstance just to provide some context Mr. Tui, you want to add to that or maybe Jacob has something to say Mr. Tui not me I think one of the things that really does show like I was saying before that what COVID has presented for us is put a spotlight on existing problems like we are a colonised nation here in Australia we were colonised by the British 230 years ago we still do not have treaty we still do not have an agreement with our government about native title but what we do have is a history of traditional arts being monetised and corporatised and this dates back to the mid-1850s the mid-1800s where you had entrepreneurs who went about kidnapping traditional dances from different areas and creating dance groups and essentially touring them up and down the east coast of Australia this also led to human zoos that were taken to New York France so what it ended up doing from the mid-1800s is turning traditional arts into a commodity so that's the practice that we have all inherited since then that you can't practice your traditional arts unless it's a tourism venture unless it's monetised and what that kind of does is lay this problem that culture then cannot be transferred unless it is being supported through monetary transactions and that's I think the bigger problem that we need to face is because not only have we been inherited this but we've also inherited a hell of a lot of discrimination from these colonial governments where it's been set up that tradition cannot be practiced on certain lands because you have to have permits because it's been sold to mining companies because someone else owns your water environmental groups say you cannot hunt certain animals therefore you can't grab the skins that you need to make the drums that have to be made that go with the dance there's all this bureaucratic nonsense that's almost been put up as a barrier to practicing traditional arts unless of course it's the nice safe tourist version Yes I think we are seeing that a lot too from my experience in Sarawak, the Sarawak cultural village but Alina do you have anything to comment on that or not, it's fine, it's okay I was just throwing my experience and seeing a lot of these very friendly touristic versions I don't know this is leaving me a lot to think about later tonight because I haven't really thought or reflected on these things which I probably should I think the word casualty is very loaded and very dramatic but in a way maybe it's necessary for us to use such big words to so yeah Mr Tui do you have anything to add to that no okay so maybe I think another question that's coming from Kathy is also quite interesting to ponder about because a lot of our traditional forms would have some degree spiritual elements because I'm also thinking about aboriginal performances that I've seen in Australia and Kathy's question here is what do audience and communities lose when we no longer are able to watch and participate in traditional forms especially since some of these forms are rooted in spiritual practices that may not work online Mr Tui do you have anything to share with the probably spiritual elements that may come from the performance of puppets yes we have invitation from Thailand the Harmony Puppet Festival with hell yeah but this year they can do performance so they invited us to do the performance online to understand how we do puppet show with communities in the puppet videos so now we are preparing to make a video of the puppet show to send to Thailand to show in the Harmony Puppet Festival so this is our first online protection to show on internet so you have also agreed eventually somewhat to to have some online presence yeah and how do you think have you done the recording not yet but do you think there are some elements that might be lost because of the recording I understand you have shared that what is best is for a live performance where you see everything but with perspective on spiritual elements is there a spiritual element in puppet performance now I am thinking how to make video short to include everything okay Jacob or Elena any comments what I look at the questions here yeah yeah yeah I was just looking at the questions from Irene and Sharifah hmm about compromises I think that might have been in relation to what I was saying and all I could keep thinking was like especially with the Wild Dog project what I am doing now this is one example when you look at because elders had come to me and said okay what we need to do is we need to walk country we need to take the children we need to walk that country walk that song line to teach that song line to a new generation so what in terms of capitalist and colonial systems what problems that puts up for us in general there is such a large continent if we were to take a group of elders and youth and a new generation of people belonging to that and walking that country that could take us anything up to three to four months now when that trip finishes there is three and four months of rent of bills of all kinds of things that need to be paid because we all have to go back to our homes and those homes need to be paid for that electricity needs to be paid for so does the water so therefore that is what the current system has presented us in order to do tradition the way tradition is supposed to be the way we are supposed to where we do go on long journeys where some ceremonies that we do have last up for two months but in this current system in the last 230 years and all of these kind of capitalist colonial and neoliberal systems that we have all adopted that's generally that's the block the hurdle yes I think to probably balance this sense of anxiety that we might be facing I would like to share a comment given by a colleague of mine Kamini Ramachandran so she says here hi everyone this is Kamini from Storyfest Singapore we had to suddenly pivot the entire festival online last minute to the digital medium due to COVID-19 instead of castancelling the entire festival we decided to take the components that could translate to video as online storytelling and you know she said about it being launched at YouTube this Friday so look out for that I think Kathy has also shared a link there and there has been quite positive responses and now people are more able to engage with hope tales, myths and fairy tales and of course she also admits that nothing can replace the intimacy and intensity of a physical storytelling session but in the interim we are able to continue to engage with our audiences here we also hear her saying oral tradition is one of the oldest arts forms and in its simplest form it is able to somewhat translate to the digital medium and maintain most of its essence as long as we have a story a storyteller and one listener able to share our traditional stories I think in conjunction with what she also said I think my fellow colleagues here too have shared a lot about going online to share and also engaging with more youth practitioners as well I would just like to highlight a question there it sounds like she is a student who is also learning more about the traditional arts she has asked if being in the arts industry is there a bright future especially for performers parents have an impression that arts in general does not have a career advancement especially since in the arts you tend to be self-employed as well and this Covid situation shows how there aren't many opportunities because we rely on audience does anybody wants to comment or to give some advice to I think this young lady with regards to career advancements in this period well I think many jobs don't really have advancements in this period it is a tough time for jobs I think in the arts you can progress in advance and you know if that's where your heart is and your talent is then you should go for it but go all in I think this environment has taught us as well a lot about resilience and also has taught us a lot about I think if there is any intention at all to be an artist this is something that we will be faced with I think even pre-Covid as much as it has been very detrimental to a lot of artists it is also clear that even before Covid such stigma anxieties have already been present so I think I don't necessarily like to paint a very beautiful picture when we talk about life as an artist it gives us some satisfaction to some extent we also must take this on board the journey in life that comes and the rejections that we might face so I think all the more Covid should make us even more resilient from the three of you here today sharing a lot about your experiences in dealing with non-funding or even minimal funding there is still to some extent a desire to practice if I can now highlight Nabilah Said's question is there maybe a need to do away with the categories of traditional versus non-traditional art is there a respect for the sacred and historic within modern arts administrations beyond a performative or cursory respect I think she is also highlighting here about a lot of times when we talk about performing arts we are also talking about the theatre and the theatre itself is very much a western concept or a western construct I think she is also talking about environments wherein the art form itself it is not really practiced within a theatre setting like what we have heard from Alina as well about the circle community, circle dancing and from Jacob with regards to elders maybe you have something to share or to comment on Nabilah's question what is the cursory respect maybe if Nabilah can share a little bit about her thoughts about what she means by cursory respect I would say a respect for the sacred and historic within modern art administrations beyond a performative I think there is a lot of similarities between traditional and non-traditional arts like I said sometimes I think why isn't the piano considered traditional like guitars and that kind of stuff I think as a traditional artist or musician maybe our process is a little bit different from non-traditional arts and maybe we need more support in that process but you do see now contemporary we have seen contemporary arts that are site specific not in a theater by a waterfall or in the bus I think there is a lot of there is something to say for doing away with the categories of traditional versus non-traditional but maybe looking more at the needs like documentation research and I guess the different processes involved or maybe reframing what you think is traditional and non-traditional I think we've had problems with that in Australia too and it's purely I think really over the kind of categories that traditional arts always get put into whether it be hobbyist, whether it be folk whether it be heritage arts which then is often seen as community practice and not worthy of investment particularly financial investment however what you know like coming from Australia coming from a culture who is considered you know we're one of the world's oldest living continuous culture in the world we have carbon dating that suggests that we've been here for 80,000 years on this continent and there's new carbon dating that is suggesting that we have had occupation of the continent of Australia for 120,000 years which kind of blows that whole out of Africa notion out of the water so for us traditional arts is a way of communicating with each other but also it's a way you know these songs and these stories are the way in which we find out who we are and how we belong to a certain place it tells you about the landscape it tells you how to navigate that environment when how to sustain yourself and your community so I think when we look at traditional non-traditional arts I would ask of non-traditional arts and contemporary arts to then go to then ask that ask a question what is your function Thank you for that Jacob Mr Tui I'm actually quite curious also you know like when you did say that you know Papa Tree arts is is facing you know not many audiences or at least only support as in no support from the government I wonder whether the traditional arts for what is Papa Tree being faced with are there more contemporary art forms that are coming in Myanmar that is affecting audience also I think so because we have collaboration with Alion Francais Francaisie and also Gude Institute the German Kacha Center so they they contacted Papa Making Storytelling so my son and my daughter they participated and also we have collaboration in Thailand Cambodia as well collaboration with ASEAN Papa Tree Association so now we are trying to step from Papa Tree to the modern Papa Tree or contemporary storytelling so I think the audience is looking for news change so we have to show them the Papa Tree in tradition is just so in Myanmar Papa Tree so Papa shows not only for entertaining they are like a media in old days there was no television, no newspaper so Papa Tears are telling story not only telling story they are conveying message between the government and public in the Papa Shoe as well so we like to do like in Malaysia we met the paper monkey the Papa group now they are making contemporary Papa Tree and the the politic storytelling so in Myanmar as well we like to do but at the moment we are not allowed Thank you so much Mr. Tui for that I think that a diverse set of expectations, questions and problems in this wonderful panel probably before I wrap up could I just invite all of you to share a little bit or lastly about what is your hope as a practitioner of the form moving forward I know this is difficult but I think let's end with that all our efforts even in this COVID circumstance would be something that is going to help even if it's not us the audience that we have created even in this period so maybe if I could ask probably Elena if you have if you want to share any words of hope I don't know where to start compared to traditional arts I just hope that you know we will find a way to I think number one like I said the most urgent thing is the research and documentation part so I don't know what it is maybe if there is better connectivity suddenly in the rural areas that we can connect to the elders over there or if we can somehow start training for people to use recording facilities that we don't have yet to maybe this will be something to push us that way yeah and I also hope people will take this time to learn as well so I've started giving staff aid lessons and I think it's a good time to take lessons especially when performers are not busy performing so I'm encouraging people to take lessons you know wherever they are to also sit with their there's something else I've done encourage people to sit with their elders with their parents whoever is around them and just to draw stories from them thank you so much Elina for that Mr Tui maybe you have words of hope and wisdom to share before we wrap up yeah as I said before I like to show live performance but this is a challenge for the audience so I have to try to change performance online how to show them okay thank you Mr Tui and for Jacob any words of hope yeah I think I would definitely agree with what Elina has said about learning and documentation of elders and knowledge I think looking in some of the comments there's a couple of words that have popped up one being sacred and one being sharing I think in terms of moving forward it would be great like in this great pause that we now have if we as communities around the world as societies not just arts communities can relook at what the function of arts gathering and arts practice is because I think if we look at ourselves as contemporary arts practitioners this has all come from a traditional practice over thousands and thousands of years this contemporary arts movement has evolved into what we are expressing right now it would be great if in this time we could look behind us and maybe return back to the sacred and back to the sharing and I think that's what a lot of people are wanting they're needing connection right now thank you for that I think I just realized something that if we were to consider history the four of us come from nations which have been colonized by the British okay yay so I'm sorry it was just to lighten up the lighten up spirits to also I would like to say I don't know why I'm I would like to say that I'm very touched by the stories that the three of you have shared with me today and I think it also speaks a lot about resilience and also talking a lot about returning back to the sacred or returning back to the function of why we create communities in the first place and I thank all of you for this and I hope and as well you know to the audience that we have been sharing our stories to today I think they have been an audience that is very engaged and committed thank you so much for the questions that have come and also comments that have also shared stories of hope stories of how you know artists are also finding new ways in interacting with audiences online so with that I would like to say thank you and I would like to pass it I would like to pass this time now to Nabila I've written here quite big please return it to Nabila thank you Amin, thank you to the speakers and moderators I just have some closing remarks while everyone is still here hang on, I'm just sharing my screen so for the audience who's here, thank you so much for joining us and for sharing this space today with us I was mentioning that this is the second of this burning question series and our third one is happening just next week so we hope that you will be able to join us and for that one the topic or the burning question is is there hope for integrity and intimacy in online performance and I think there will be a very interesting topic as well a very different one from today and there will be a very interesting one as well and our panellists are Bernice Lee who's from Singapore Katrina Stewart Santiago who's a cultural critic from Manila and there's Maria Trisulistiani who's from Paper Moon in Jogja Indonesia and the moderator is Cory Tan for that one so we hope you can join us next week as well so you can sign up for that talk on PTICS and just one last thing before I go is us the creator is also doing reviewing courses if anyone is interested we're doing dance and theater and books reviewing so that's kind of interesting for the dance course the registration actually closes on the 27th of July so if anyone is interested please do look at our website and our social media pages for that information but yeah that's all thank you so much to everyone for joining us we wish you a very good night thank you


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Good morning everyone. Delighted to see so many people here interested in privacy, interested in GDPR. It's a very good sign and hope that today you're going to hear a number of interesting discussions. There is also a number of friends here from the wire around. So if you're interested to hear a bit more about the wire, please feel free to talk to anyone, approach anyone. So once more warm welcome and thank you on behalf of wire and our pass word to David, our host and the moderator for today. So my name is David Mayer, I just introduced myself first. I'm a journalist and writer. I write Fortune International Association of Privacy Professionals, ZDNet and some others occasionally. And I just published a book at the end of last year called Control Shift, How Technology Effects You and Your Rights. And funnily enough the book discusses the general data protection regulation, which is one of the most fundamental changes in privacy law in Europe and probably in the world. It's likely to be deeply influential because it reaches so many companies, many of whom don't realize what they're about to be hit with on the 25th of May, which is understandable because it's a fundamental law that affects so many parts of our modern digital economy. Some of those impacts may still have to reveal themselves, but hopefully all of them are taken into consideration by the law makers. And our first speaker, we're very lucky to have Jan Arnrecht, who is the daddy of the GDPR, I think will be a fair way to describe you. German Green is a member of the European Parliament who really shed a bit of the process in the law's creation. So, take it away, Jan. Thank you, David, and also thank you, Ellen, to wire because I think that it is not only the right time to get these discussions started, but also it is absolutely necessary that these discussions are done here and that we are together discussing the possibilities and also the challenges which come out of these new regulatory approaches, but also which come out of the realities which we want to regulate here because that's also, of course, a fact. It's not only a fact that we have done a regulation and that this regulation will be getting into effect on the 25th of May and that we are regulating the European markets in a new way for data protection, but it's also a fact that the world is changing rapidly and it is not only touching the question of how the world changes with digitisation, with new technologies, but also how the world is changing with global markets and actors in our lives and the interaction of society in general. So, it's huge and that is why I also would say from the beginning the general data protection regulation, yes, it is a regulation on data protection and the way our personal data in the European markets has to be treated and how individuals affected by it have to be protected, but it's much more than that. It is not only a fundamental law, I think it is a start of discussing fundamental principles of a technologised society and world which is completely different of the past. In the past we have had very basic rules like fundamental rights, catalogs, like food safety rules or competition standards which were affecting many areas of our lives and we saw very often that's it, but now something additional comes to it and that is at least data protection rules but I also see some other new areas like IT security, like kind of platform regulation in this digitalised market also maybe standards like interconnectivity in services, etc. So, you see that now there is this technology area, not anymore one area which is specifically regulated and which is separate from the rest of the world, but it becomes a new layer in everything what we do and so the laws affecting it and the regulation which we pass in this area will also be a layer which will affect all areas of our life and that is interesting when we look at the GDPR because it answers quite a lot of the questions which have been brought up by the technological developments of the recent years it's not only answering the question how do we enforce standards in a digitised environment where for example a company can just choose in which jurisdiction it sits and an individual will be faced with the fact that I have different apps on my phone I have different websites I visit and I never really know in which of these jurisdictions I have which means I don't know which rights I will have, which protection I will get, which language I have to speak if I want to address an authority or even a court where I may be needing another lawyer of another jurisdiction to learn that and to get my rights at the end but where we will see the challenge that individuals really are on a far weaker position than those who are dealing with the data and this question that needed to be answered that was the first reason why we did the GDPR to make sure that there is no forum shopping, there is no disadvantage for those who are at the end of this the individuals who have a fundamental right to data protection and privacy at least in the European Union assured by treaties and we had to do something about it the other point is that for the moment and for the last decades we didn't really decide to make it a competitive disadvantage to we didn't really get there to make it a competitive advantage to follow high data protection standards but in fact it was a disadvantage to follow them and to be forced by some regulators at least also inside the European market to follow high standards of data protection and IT security so there was a decision to be made about that and there were two possibilities to answer that question one was to say okay then we have to choose the lowest standard because otherwise nobody for example on the European market will be competitive anymore if we don't follow the standards of other markets or other regulators in the world or we choose to make sure that everybody who is acting on this common market which is not at least the biggest single common market in the world we built a common standard which is high which is trustful and where everybody really needs to accept it so one of the big steps with this regulation was to make sure while we are choosing this option of setting a high standard but enforcing that everybody has to agree with it and to follow it on this market to ensure that EU law is applied in extraterritorial extent which is a huge discussion of course calling the principle behind the market location principle a little bit like a competitive law to make sure that nobody can just away these rules by not being seated in the European market but by offering the services of products from the internet to Europeans and to make sure that everybody will feel the consequences of reaching these laws so we did not only choose to get some rules for consistent enforcement between the different authorities in the European Union but also we chose to impose heavy sanctions on those who are breaking these standard data protection rules which might in the first place look a bit odd to say yeah but it's just data protection but in the end it's just enforcement of rules and of course if you look at the sanctions it's always the question will everybody have to clear the same sanctions and that is to be honest not the case sanctions will have to be proportionate always and that is important as one of the principles which we were bringing into it it is to make sure that if somebody really thinks he or she can evade that rules that there's no way around that without severe consequences so these are the two big answers we wanted to give first of all again to make sure that individuals get their right in a digital environment and secondly that there is a level playing field an equal competitive situation for those who follow data protection rules with a high standard or those who don't want to do it or want to spare some money about it they will all be forced to the same set of standards and of course you still can go ahead you still can be more and better about it but at least if you follow these high standards you're not disadvantaged anymore then and I said that it is far more than that and that there are far more areas we will touch there's a huge bunch of rules which already anticipate debates which we're having in other areas for example transparency and information rights which we would make far more stronger and simpler for everyone whose personal data is being processed we all know that nobody reads the terms and conditions and data protection rules and we have so many examples which are so funny which I don't need to repeat because we all know it's still alive somebody clicks I have read the terms and I agree with them because Bose is wrong and that is the reason why we chose to really make it a core principle that the information which is given is really meaningful and simple to understand and that this is also one of the provisions which is in the core of what is to be sanctioned so somebody who is not making it simply understandable what's happening will be sanctioned and not like it was before where lawyers were writing pages of text you're on the safe side if that is the case in the future you will be on the safe side if it's as simple as possible understandable and I think that it's the right way to do it to be open and clear about it and that leads to the point that it even goes in the direction of making available the logic behind the processing of personal data which means also the logic behind the processing of all technology which we will have in the future because in almost all of information technology products and services in the future there will be sets of personal data involved not all the data will be personal data that's also not true you can always go for anonymized data or for data which is like the size of this room which is just not personal information but there will be very often in technology personal data involved so the standard of making available the algorithms logic at least to the individual will apply to almost all the systems and that is one of the basic regulatory answers by this GDPR this regulation another one which is also applying to all systems and which hasn't been realized until now is that we have a set of data security requirements so IT security requirements at the end until now we don't have really common minimum standards for IT security and regulatory environments but with the GDPR at least if there's personal data somewhere involved in a system or will be involved in a system you need to comply with a certain baseline standard for IT security it is quite the very baseline what we foresee there and we still have to work on it in the future and I am actually working on it in the European Parliament to create better standards for IT security but this is the first step into making sure that we go in this direction then we have the principle of privacy by design and privacy by default and that is something which is so important for the development of new products and services and new infrastructure in the future to make sure and it stands representative also for security by design or security by default to make sure that control is by nature given to those who are getting the services, getting the product to design on their own if they want to create a weakness if they want to expose themselves, if they want to go out of their comfort zone and open up for whatever risks possible out there and we all know that there might be so many risks today we are just truly aware of all of it and that is why these principles by building in security privacy right from the beginning with technology solutions and with also default approaches is a very key part of this regulation and therefore answering also similar questions in other areas not only in personal data impact assessments, to do impact assessments of what you do when developing services and products we have the whole debate about how to regulate machine learning or AI and robotics, interaction with humans the question of how to do and when to do impact assessments technology impact assessments is the core of that and it will have to be part of what we do and how we develop technology and infrastructure in the future and the data protection regulation brings that into the center of new technologies also principles and individual rights which are new like data portability or also the possibilities to declare an opt out via technical standards setting technical standards which are neutral which are applicable to many data controllers that is the start of an infrastructure which is opening up for a really eye to eye conversation between the individual and those who are offering solutions technology services, products the eye to eye level is that I'm not dependent on the one who offers me something but I have different possibilities to go in whatever direction I can like when I'm going out of the street I'm not forced to go one way I can work different ways I can go to different shops or different offers and that is what we want to achieve also in this area where the data protection regulation offers one of the solutions with data portability so you are not forced to like lose your data if you go somewhere else or with technical standards so that you are not forced to always set different environments, different standards but you can do it via a technical standard which has to be respected a discussion which we by the way also have with the e-privacy regulation when it comes to cookies for example or other tracking possibilities that there is technical standards which you can use and where you can trust that this is to be respected on the other side last but not least I think that there are also challenges ahead we haven't answered here with this data protection regulation and that is starting for example from data portability I think that one of the big questions we still need to answer and that is also discussed in the communications code on the European level that's the telecommunications regulation and in e-privacy is interconnectivity that there is really an opening up of the different silos which we have been building up throughout the last decades and which is very hard to be opened especially also when it comes to hardware questions or also encryption where the standards are completely different and it's not clear how to implement encryption and if it can be mandatory in the future to make sure we have a secure ecosystem of communication not only between individuals but maybe also between machines or individuals and machines so there is these big questions which are still on the table and I'm very happy to see what's possible to move forward to that but what the GDPR delivers for the moment and that's the very positive notion which I want to then finish with is that we have an example how we can approach these new complex technological questions and how we can approach the problem that it is more or less a global question and networks are to be global and markets will be global to answer these questions effectively not only by clicking as a user and trying to get other users to click the same way but by democratic debates and decision making and by classical way of agreeing to values and basic standards so everybody can trust on and it's not up to some people who just move us from right to left or try to trick us somehow over the table and I think that this is really a huge chance which we have and where we can see that it's not too late for regulators also to get engaged in progressive and future orientated regulation in the digital society and digital market and that this is a very good example which now even before it gets into effect on the 25th of May already is becoming the gold standard for data protection rules for personal data treatment in the global market not because the Europeans were convincing other states to follow them they are still doing that and they are quite successful with that because the big players and big companies on the digital market almost everyone is deciding to just say okay we see that this is standard which I can't just walk around so I implement it and it's just easier to implement that for all of my business rather than having a different method approach which we had until today where we have had to create solutions for very different jurisdictions again and again and we see just right now there were articles just like two days ago in the New York Times how this is happening rapidly how there is an investment going into it so this is the moment to take it as an initiative to say we all know this will be the standard so the question is only how to get this standard on the road and how to get some advantage out of it and I think the biggest advantage out of it is to gaining confidence and gaining support by consumers who see that this can be really a positive aspect of products and services in the digital market and in their digitalized life thank you very much


Thank you for the the lead-in to what I'm about to talk about. I'm gonna go slightly off script and I apologize to the organizers but you know I was gonna talk today and I will talk today about public accountability and the work I'm doing on red teaming but I actually wanted to start off with like what I was woken up to woken up to this article that published in Politico about the extent to which the existential risk movement and effect of altruism is starting to bleed into DC and I don't know how much folks here are paying attention to what's going on politically but Professor Allen was absolutely correct right there there is a war happening right now and it's actually the war for the soul of how technology is being used and if we think about AI as the next iteration of the great pulling apart it is a battle we're currently losing because for all the hundreds of millions of dollars that the UK government spent in the last few years on responsible AI effect of altruism the manner of a few years has come in and captured the entire government so myself and probably some folks in this room will be at the UK AI summit in a couple of weeks and it's going to be a very different tone and tenor than what we are used to seeing in the UK frankly when I built my practice at Accenture in 2017 even though I lived in San Francisco I set my hub in London because it was the center at which there was applied algorithmic ethics the first Accenture about the first tool that we built at Accenture the fairness tool which is now an entire industry of bias detection and mitigation technologies was built with the Turing Institute and now folks like myself the folks of the Turing Institute said we are scrambling to be relevant anymore and this article that I woke up to this morning was about how their funded internships of effective altruism all over DC and I can tell you I've been aware of this for months we know that they're very they are well funded and they are well organized but so are we right so how are we shaping ourselves to have an affirmative vision what do we stand for and what are we about what is our goal what are we telling children when we work with them when we do projects with them what are we telling them that their goal and their mission is and I think that sometimes we are a little bit confused right so we we are certainly the field and responsible AI certainly is the field that is very very good at pointing out problems and things I hope that my career has been built on making solutions as well and while harm mitigation and risk mitigation is a good thing to do and we certainly should be thinking about it we also need to think about what we are building towards right so Professor Allen had an amazing example of her grandparents who actually worked towards an affirmative vision they wanted something and you can mobilize people when you want a thing and you make them want that thing as much as you want it to so my ask to you is to think through what is it what what is it that we want how can we put in one line the thing we will tell an undergraduate a high school student a PhD student a member of Congress this is what I want and this is how you can help me get it because it really is we have to make our language that that simple so I want to talk a little bit about what I'm working on lately which is building out public accountability and my little slice my answer of the you know my the little thing that I'm trying to solve here is how do we get better structured public feedback because the gap that I saw is that in industry because I you know came from industry in this field it's very well funded right so responsible AI teams exist there's a lot of work happening it's been happening for years government is increasingly aware right so as I mentioned the UK government had spent hundreds of millions of dollars building out all sorts of institutes that actually were focused on responsible AI the only thing I saw consistently missing and I still do see missing is the role of public feedback now we have methods in the US government various governments of public feedback right so you do RFIs you know like people provide commentary and I will talk you through the ways in which all of those simply don't work today so when NTIA put out their RFI they received I believe about 2,500 submissions now how are they supposed to parse through 2,500 five to seven page long essays about people's perspectives and opinions all of which I'm sure are very very well written I'm sure lots of people in this room contributed as well I did to but it is not a tenable way to truly get public opinion another one that we see we see constantly is sort of public commentary on some sort of a site etc. before I worked in responsible AI I taught data science at this at a boot camp and one of my students who actually now is at ProPublica or was at ProPublica did a project where he demonstrated that much of the public cap with the quote public commentary that was provided on net neutrality was actually developed by bots so people created informational bot rings to make it look as if the public thought a certain thing the fundamental problem is even with public feedback it's not always clear what people want in aggregate so the political scientist I can tell you there is no quote people there is no quote public right there is no singular voice so how do we get the kind of feedback we need to improve AI systems and I appreciate using the term human flourishing because I use that as well I mean it's it's a term from Aristotle it sounds very abstract and very strange like what does it mean to flourish I don't know if I know what the answer to that is but I do know that it is critically important that we figure out what that means for us so if the current feedback loop is broken right so right now the way the public is heard is something happens you go viral on social media a journalist picks it up maybe and there's maybe some sort of an outrage about it that is a broken loop and I'll I'll tell you why because as somebody whose job it was to try to fix these things at companies it is very difficult to deal with a contextless screenshot and people being mad like I wouldn't know what to do with that information how to even start with inspection how to actually meaningfully reach out and understand what's happening because now there's an entire you know outraged zeitgeist around whatever it is that people think happened and we don't actually know what the facts are so how do we fix this feedback loop right so red teaming is a is a practice that actually started from the military and it is used in the information security field and I've actually learned a lot reaching out to friends and colleagues that work in InfoSec and what I admire about what they've built is they have built institutions that enable them to remain independent but influential and they've built these institutions within governments within industries and they've always done it collaboratively so one of the themes that we have at this event is like how can we think about collaboration and building collaboratively and I think sometimes it sounds a bit distasteful for those of us who work in in a field in which our job is to speak for more moral decision-making to be working with individuals that maybe we perceive as to be non-moral institutions or non-moral individuals but the reality of the situation is these institutions and these individuals simply hold the kind of access and power we need to achieve our vision and our goals right it is not pretty it is certainly ugly but it is certainly true and what InfoSec has done very very well is managed to create a world in which they are in collaboration with but not beholden to these organizations and that that's the part that I think we have not yet solved and I would I would love to work with you to solve that so red teaming is a practice that exists in InfoSec and what it enables is an independent world of third-party assessors and auditors so for example as my team and I get fired from Twitter where do we go we have nowhere to go the only place we can go is back to industry and that's where most of my team is gone most of my team really wants to work on responsible AI but the best way to do the best way to get your hands on models and fix code and tell people how to improve things and have those and have those changes implemented right now only exists in industry I've been happy to work with government agencies for example the European Center for Algorithmic Transparency and trying to get things like the e-cat off the ground and right now the e-cats actually doing its job you may be following what's happening with X and well with between Elon Musk and Terry Breton and their discussion on how they're auditing their models based on misinformation and they're actually able to get into the room because legislation has been passed to enable people within government to do the kind of assessment auditing now how do we build that world outside of industry and outside of government so I think we will all in this room agree that a good ecosystem involves empowered independent actors so what I did with a couple of friends is pull together the largest ever generative AI red teaming challenge and BD right like no big deal and what we did was something that I don't know if I've seen in our industry before and and I'm very proud of the work we did we managed to bring together every single major large language model company as well as some smaller ones so eight different companies were engaged and involved this was sponsored by the White House specifically the Office of Science Technology and Policy and NIST and every two weeks and actually towards the end every single week I ran a meeting that actually is still run today where it was every single member every single lead of the red team at all of these companies NIST OSTP and civil society organizations including Tera's Black Tech Street and Avid and of course Humane Intelligence and AI Village and what we did was craft a challenge and a competition like it was actually designed as a competition to make it fun and interesting for people but the secret mission within that is to actually build the networks and collaboration in a way that we've not really seen before I was told by the red team leads at these companies that they've actually never talked to their counterparts because they never had a room in which they could safely do that I'm seeing nods from people who work in industry it's very hard like you know industry people don't always have a venue to talk to each other creating that and then creating that an environment where government is in the room and civil society is in the room it's very critical that we got together and we in a sense put aside our individual identities and our affiliations and we decided the purpose of this work was to create challenges that actually fundamentally got at the problems of large language models and generative AI and our role was to understand from the public from regular people how it can be better improved and fixed now of course there are many things about the design of the challenge that could certainly be improved Defconn of course is a competition that that is sorry Defconn is a is a conference that draws folks from cybersecurity so it is overwhelmingly a particular audience of people but it was fascinating to see in that room the hope and the ambition and I was told by more than one person that you know in InfoSec conference it's not it's a very cynical place right these are not people these are people who've seen the worst of everything they assume the worst of humanity right because that's their job and somebody pointed out to me that it had been a long time before since they had since they had seen optimism in the room and I that was probably the best compliment I got that entire weekend so that that that meeting that I'm talking about continues today so what we're building is the is a report that will be published in February and what that report will outline is not just what we found but also what was done about it and my hope is that with that little project we're moving towards closing that feedback loop so today when we get public feedback often it goes nowhere and people will say it feels useless it feels like we're shouting into the wind my hope is that we're actually able to give structured feedback to say hey you told us this and by the way this is what we did now this is a one-off project that was built on good will my goal with my nonprofit human intelligence is to make this something more sustainable and lasting and I'm going to give you some numbers from the DEF CON challenge right so as I mentioned we had eight large language mobile companies it's every company you know in a few that you don't we had 20 hours of people coming in and entering this competition we had 21 different challenges a couple of them were around hacking but most of them were about the concept of what I call embedded harms ways in which large language models can surface incorrect biased or misleading information that could be harmful in society including misinformation you know incorrect refusals meaning you know just a discriminatory output based on how the model is deciding to communicate and talk we also had 2200 people show up and take the competition and that was having a line that was over an hour long out the door we were actually not able to bring in everybody who wanted to be part of the competition and it's something we're constantly being asked to continue today and the legacy does continue we're hosting our next red teaming event on October 25th I started off this talk by talking about what's happening in the UK in a few weeks so my hope is that my little contribution is doing a red teaming exercise with the Royal Society on COVID miss and disinformation where we're getting together COVID experts and climate experts to work with large language models not just to demonstrate the kind of miss and disinformation that can and will be produced but how these models can be used to create at scale miss and disinformation campaigns and you know we we are working on llama 2 and I hope to have the support of meta in that competition and my hope is also that when I'm in Bletchley Park with the small small group of people who have been invited there myself folks like on the cock Andrew straight do she Marta who have been working in this field for a very long time who managed to snag a golden ticket which is what we're calling it can be a contingency to push back against the narrative that I see being very very pervasive in this field so what's next my hope is that we grow this concept of red teaming because structured public feedback is done well when we get the right people in the room who have the right lived experience to tell us how how language models and artificial intelligence can be improved to enable human flourishing what's next is that I would love to work with folks in this room to figure out how we have a coordinated affirmative vision for what we're going to do because as I've mentioned there's a war being fought and right now we are losing thank you


Hello my name is Salha Abdu from Sudan. I'm working as a lecturer at Open University of Sudan. I participated in OAAE conference in Nant Ahia. It was a very great opportunity to share our ideas and experiences in open and distance learning. A course like this event will increase awareness about the open and distance learning and OAAE. Thank you so much.