Saskatchewan Energy & Natural Resources Forum 2026
Capability, Sovereignty & Future Generations
Presenters
- Liza Kerr-Kohunui
- Graeme Smith
Context
This breakout session explored Indigenous perspectives on artificial intelligence through the lens of partnership, capability, sovereignty, and future generations.
Drawing on experiences from Aotearoa New Zealand, the presentation shared two practical stories:
- Kaitiaki GPT and community capability
- AI for Good and system capability
Rather than focusing on AI itself, the session explored a broader question:
How do communities, organisations, and industries strengthen participation and sovereignty under conditions of accelerating complexity?
Partnership Perspectives on AI from Aotearoa New Zealand
The presentation opened by acknowledging the shared challenges facing Indigenous communities, governments, educators, and industry.
The central proposition was that AI is not simply a technology issue.
It is increasingly a capability, governance, and future-generations issue.
The presentation was framed as a partnership conversation rather than a technology presentation.
Infrastructure Acceleration Demands Sovereign Capability
The audience was invited to consider a central question:
What happens when infrastructure acceleration outruns community capability?
The presentation proposed a simple relationship:
Infrastructure → Data → Capability → Sovereignty
and argued that:
Infrastructure without capability creates dependency.
Capability secures sovereignty.
This became the organising principle for the remainder of the session.
Situated Sovereignty
The first story focused on the development of Kaitiaki GPT alongside a local iwi in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The project began with a practical challenge.
Ngāti Mahuta had developed an Environmental Management Plan that brought together:
- mātauranga Māori
- environmental priorities
- governance expectations
- legal positioning
The challenge was not producing more information.
The challenge was helping people engage with increasingly complex information.
At the same time, the iwi was being asked to respond to:
- mining proposals
- infrastructure developments
- engineering reports
- legal reports
- environmental assessments
often comprising thousands of pages.
The asymmetry was obvious.
Companies arrived with specialists.
Communities often did not.
Kaitiaki GPT
Rather than creating another technology product, the project focused on strengthening participation.
Kaitiaki GPT was developed as a values-informed digital assistant capable of:
- navigating large documents
- interpreting proposals
- assessing impacts against iwi values
- generating plain-language summaries
- supporting governance conversations
The central insight was:
The goal was not to automate decision-making.
The goal was to strengthen community participation in decision-making.
Capability Formation
The second story expanded from community capability to system capability.
This section explored the development of AI for Good and broader questions surrounding:
- education
- governance
- Indigenous data sovereignty
- youth participation
- future leadership
- values-informed technology
The discussion emphasised that capability is not limited to technical skills.
Future capability also includes:
- governance capability
- critical thinking
- cultural capability
- decision-making capability
- leadership capability
The question is not whether AI enters our communities.
The question is whether future generations inherit the capability to shape it.
From Stories to Sovereign Capability
The final section brought both stories together.
The presentation argued that sovereignty is not only a question of ownership, infrastructure, or technology.
It is also a question of:
- understanding
- participation
- governance
- capability
Partnership became a central theme.
Strong partnerships require informed participation on all sides.
Capability strengthens partnership.
Partnership strengthens sovereignty.
Closing Reflection
The session concluded by returning to stewardship and future generations.
Technology was presented as an enabler rather than the centre of the conversation.
The deeper challenge is ensuring that communities themselves have the capability to participate in shaping the systems that increasingly shape their futures.
The presentation closed with the whakataukī:
Hutia te rito o te harakeke, kei hea te kōmako e kō?
If the heart of the flax is removed, where will the bellbird sing?
He aha te mea nui o te ao?
What is the most important thing in the world?
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
It is people.