Writing about Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property requires consideration of protocols. It is an important part of the writing process. Yet, when AI is involved in producing an output, these protocols are compromised. AI outputs left unchecked can lead to cultural harm for Indigenous people. 

Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property

Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property refers to  First Nations’ knowledge and cultural expression. Speaking for ICIP is cultural practice that is handed down through the generations of Indigenous peoples. ICIP comes from Country. It is a living cultural practice with responsibilities. The cultural protocols of respect, integrity, and reciprocity make sure story and culture remain with its people. A story must hold respect for its spirit and cultural origins. You cannot mix a story from one Country with another person’s Country.

ICIP rights are covered in the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) which provides that Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control and protect their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expression  (1). Yet, there is no Australian law that grants rights to Indigenous people to assert these rights. Copyright can provide some coverage, but the copyright law does not deal with collective ownership, cultural integrity, benefit sharing, and attribution rights that Indigenous people seek to their knowledge and cultural expression (2). The Commonwealth Government has committed to the development of ICIP laws (3). But we are not there yet. 

For all creators, copyright law cannot deal with the growing issues arising from AI. But for Indigenous people, it is magnified given the gaps in the law already dealing with ICIP. AI has become a tool to amplify misuse and the potential for cultural harm.

The problems with AI and its interactions with ICIP

AI can extract large amounts of data, summarise, and spit something out to you in five seconds. But it has no relationship with the content. It cannot understand Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property protocols, cultural authority or the care needed to ensure that stories from cultures 65,000 years old, are respected and attributed.

Cultural theft

AI platforms like ChatGPT and Claude have been built on the creative outputs of creators. As creators call for greater respect, compensation, and regulation, the question of ICIP should also be considered. The practice of Indigenous knowledge is oral based. Stories can be told and retold, but when someone writes it down, copyright is created. The person writing the story owns it. The ICIP knowledge holder has no rights to control ICIP unless they are the writer. Indigenous knowledge is often used without proper recognition and without payment. AI is scraping knowledge on the internet, it is taking artworks, designs, stories, and cultural information without asking. 

The source of AI information is dubious

AI may have been trained on materials that include out of date, culturally unchecked, and derogatory language and stereotypes. AI can spread falsities and inaccuracies. Information can be skewed. It has been found to amplify bias and to potentially perpetuate deficit views about Indigenous people. If people rely on it, and do not question its reliability, these falsities perpetuate. 

AI has no Dreaming

AI got no Dreaming (4). AI doesn’t know protocols. It doesn’t discern that one story belongs to one Country and should not be used to refer to another Country  – land, seas, waters, kin and people. Such re-positioning of a story without cultural authority is a cultural transgression. 

Cultural flattening

In the same way that AI book slop is of low quality, bland, and lacking meaning (5), the same is for ICIP. AI systems can tend towards homogenisation when used autonomously and repeatedly (6) and can lead to cultural flattening (7). Cultural flattening is where outputs lack the depth of the cultural nuance that local knowledge holders or storytellers can give. Indigenous knowledge is inextricably linked to its relationship to the world around us, it is subjective and experiential knowing. Large language models cannot capture the nuance of culture, its ways of knowing (8).  

Lived experience

Dealing with sensitive content including trauma, racism, and the impacts of colonisation all require discernment when writing. There are protocols for enabling Indigenous people to own their stories, and be their own voice. Writing stories about trauma, loss and cultural connection requires tact. There are also cultural mourning protocols that deal with how a person can speak about the dead, use their images and voice, that should be considered.

Bringing back the Relational

Bronwyn Carlson and Tamika Worrell advocate for the relational future position, where AI is not a standalone tool, but part of a wider system that shapes relationships between people, institutions, data and Country (9). Effective AI governance requires attention to ethics, relationships, and cultural context.  

True Tracks® Protocols

The True Tracks® framework is a set of ten principles to lead the respectful and ethical engagement with Indigenous knowledge:

• Respect
• Self-determination
• Consultation and Consent
• Interpretation
• Cultural Integrity
• Secrecy and Privacy
• Attribution
• Benefit sharing
• Maintaining Indigenous Cultures 
• Recognition and Protection (10). 

What should authors consider when writing about Indigenous culture?

Writers are asked to consider the following when creating content involving Indigenous stories, knowledge, and cultural expression:

• Cultural Authority – Have the right First Nations people been consulted and given their prior and informed consent for this story or content?
• Self-determination – Are Indigenous people involved in the decisions about the story being made public?
• Interpretation – Is the story culturally accurate? 
• Cultural Integrity – Are cultures, languages, symbols, and practices depicted with integrity?
• Attribution – Have the Indigenous people involved been properly attributed? 
• Secrecy and Privacy – Does the work avoid showing sacred, secret, or sensitive material (11)?

These points speak to the humanness of authorship, the connections, the aspects of the writing process that are not just what is on the page. If AI has been used to generate story connected to First Nations peoples or culture, then the writer as the user should still consider cultural authority, integrity and attribution, and the principles in the True Tracks® framework. 

Conclusion: Towards culturally informed use of AI

AI presents opportunities but also responsibilities. Writers dealing with Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property need to respect ICIP protocols. Attribution is important, and so is considering whether a source is CultureStrong (12), meaning that it is created by, or with Indigenous people.  

We will also need more Indigenous AI technicians, and an AI law that speaks to ICIP.  The Office of AI to be established with Commonwealth Government must include genuine Indigenous decision-making in our nation’s AI future (13). This is how we can take positive steps to ensure that the ancient wisdom and knowledge of First Nations people can continue to be nurtured and valued.