Face of the Day

Aboriginal avatar Jarren, who hosts online videos about Australian wildlife under the name Bush Legend, is overstepping indigenous boundaries, according to Māori AI innovator Peter Lucas-Jones.

That’s because while he looks and sounds like a real person, Jarren was created not by an indigenous Australian, but by Hawke’s Bay-based content creator Keagan Mason.

“Authenticity is everything when it comes to language and culture. When people are pretending ... even if it is smattered with facts, the truth is it is not authentic,” Lucas-Jones, CEO of Māori media company Te Hiku Media told the Herald.

Videos featuring Jarren started to appear online in December last year.

More than 200,000 people follow him on the Bush Legends social pages – 92,000 on Facebook, 89,000 on Instagram and 25,000 on TikTok – with most appearing to believe Jarren is real.

But his accounts have been criticised in international media as “AI blackface” and “digital fiction”.

NZ Herald