Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

Officials say transparency is critical to build trust in the government’s most important data system, but the business case for expanding it is mostly blanked out.

Over two-thirds of the 95 pages in the business case to overhaul the Integrated Data Infrastructure, or IDI, are entirely (or a few almost entirely) redacted.

The black pen has been swept over all the options the government is looking at, all the costs to the taxpayer and the cost-benefit analysis.

Yet the business case report stated, “Transparency was highlighted as critical to building trust, with calls for clearer communication about data use, access, and safeguards.”

This was after holding five workshops with iwi, industry and non-government organisations a few months back.

Some groups really did not trust what government was doing with data, the report noted.

Referring to feedback from the Data Iwi Leaders Group, Stats NZ said, “Trust and reciprocity were identified as foundational to any future data system.”

A much more powerful IDI is crucial to the government’s social investment approach, but there were barriers.

“The social license for expanded social investment is untested,” said the report.

“There is a need to build robust data ethics practices and safeguards into the social investment approach (especially as this approach expands). This is important to maintain public trust in how government uses data and to ensure individuals and communities are comfortable sharing their data with government.”

Both the indicative business case and a Cabinet paper in October – which was when the interim business case was approved and a detailed business case ordered up – had a lot to say about how urgent it was to transform the “clunky and slow” IDI.

It was the tool that “that brings it all together”.

“The IDI is the only integrated data tool available to support the government’s social investment approach,” said the proactively released Cabinet paper.

Why so much was blanked out

The mass blanking out of the report was to “maintain the constitutional conventions for the confidentiality of advice tendered by ministers and officials” to Cabinet, Stats NZ told RNZ in its response to an Official Information Act request (OIA). This is one of the grounds allowed under OIA law.

Business cases for government projects typically lay out the options and how they compare, and often they recommend one or the other.

Both the long-listed options and the short-listed ones are blanked entirely in the IDI report, as are the critical success factors.

If you wanted to read the “detailed analysis of long list options”, too bad.

The “Economic Case” section was 19 pages long but only one page and two paragraphs of that survive for the public to read, and these illuminated little, other than to say doing a cost-benefit analysis was tricky.

A suggestion from a UK approach was that for every dollar invested you got $4 back. How does it pay off? For instance, in NZ data research inside the IDI helped spur more investment in driver training for young people, which was shown to cut how many ended up in court and costing society more.

The “Commercial Case” and the “Financial Case” in the business case were both entirely blanked out. The index showed these considered the funding model and “overall affordability”.

Missing from view too, were the main risks anticipated from implementation, and the key constraints, dependencies and assumptions.

Uncharted territory

The scope of the “transformation” of the IDI could take it into uncharted territory, as the report briefly noted.

“All data in the IDI is de-identified, so while it can be used to analyse ‘cohorts’ of people, it cannot be used for case management or targeting services to individuals,” it said.

“Any shift in how the IDI is used – for example, towards targeting services to individuals, would require significant legislative change and building strong social license for such a change.”

Most of what is left unredacted and readable in the business case are the reasons why the overhaul was required, for instance, as the key testing ground for how to spend the $190 million Social Investment Fund.

The IDI has 15 billion rows of data, but can be refreshed only three times a year because it takes so long – 12-14 weeks per refresh. It underwent its biggest refresh in June this year that required 90 hours of staff overtime to complete on the final day before deadline.

“Data integration is labour-intensive, access is limited, and data coverage and quality are patchy,” said the business case.

The Cabinet paper said demand was “increasing rapidly” particularly as the government expanded the so-called “Outcomes-Based-Contracting” model and the fledgling Social Investment Agency, and Whānau Ora commissioned more contracts through Te Puni Kōkiri.

The 15-year-old system was no match for this. “A single complex analysis within the IDI Data Lab can slow the system down for all users, turning a simple query from another user that would normally take seconds into a full day wait.”

A concentration of labs

Data Labs are the only way to access and use the IDI which has no internet connection at all to protect its contents.

There are 40 labs, over half of those are in Wellington (22), while Auckland had nine. Sydney, Rotorua, Palmerston North and Hamilton had one or two labs each – but the South Island in total had just three.

The business case, what can be seen of it, does not talk about this geographical barrier to researchers.

It quoted them saying “real-time and on-demand access to integrated data was seen as critical” but little was said about how that might be tackled.

“Streamlining research approvals and improving access protocols were suggested to reduce barriers,” it said.

A trust in Tai Rāwhiti has told RNZ about how it had to get expert help just to draw up its application for research approval, let along get hold of the coding and technical knowhow to design ways to get the data it was after once it was inside the Lab.

The IDI overhaul has been slowgoing. The indicative business case report was delivered a year overdue.

Stats NZ, in its OIA response, said it had also been delayed in developing a multiyear data and statistical programme as had been ordered, due to “competing priorities, including modernising the census and social investment”.

Plus the dedicated data support team it was meant to have set up by October ran into problems signing contracts with other agencies, so instead it had been doing its own work improving the data flow in the IDI, among other things.

Stats NZ acting deputy chief executive – office of the chief executive Sarah Dwen said the agency “absolutely recognised” the need to build public trust and confidence in the work it does.

“Transparency and being open with communities are part of that, as are lots of other factors including reliability, visibility and accessibility.

“When it comes to transparency, we need to balance that with the requirement to keep some information confidential in order to comply with Cabinet rules and guidelines, government information management guidelines and with legal frameworks.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A sudden death investigation is underway after a person was pulled from the water, at Waiotapu, near Rotorua.

At 6.15am on Sunday, emergency services were told a person had been “pulled from the water unresponsive” near Waiotapu Loop Rd.

“Enquiries are now underway to establish the circumstances surrounding the death, which is being treated as unexplained,” police said.

A person was helping with the investigation, a spokesperson said and a scene examination was about to be done.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Analysis – The 2025 Parliamentary year has ended and it was a monster.

In MPs’ final hurrah-the adjournment debate-David Seymour announced “this government has passed more legislation in the first two years of its three than any MMP Parliament has passed in its whole three years.”

Previous to this 54th Parliament, experts have said New Zealand passed too many laws; heaven knows what those folk would think now.

Parliament is breaking records both for bills passed and for a lack of careful process.

Here are a few numbers from this completed year and this parliament (so far). Where possible the current numbers are compared to previous years or parliaments.

The fun stuff

The vast throughput has chemical drivers and consolations. In his own summary of the year, the Speaker Gerry Brownlee revealed that the Beehive’s in-house cafeteria, Copperfields, sold “60,000 hot drinks-mainly coffee”.

Chris Bishop responded “I think I’ve taken quite a few thousand”, and Nicola Willis piped up, “half of them were for me”.

In a depressant mirror to the Beehive’s stimulants, the in-house bar has moved from the Beehive to Parliament House. It is now further away from the Ministers causing the workload and closer to the backbenchers suffering under it.

The golden throat lozenge awards

Working with Hansard data for the whole Parliament (up until mid-October 2025), I have squeezed out some very rough numbers to find who has done all the talking.

These numbers are for House debates but not question time. Note though: Hansard’s data is not well structured for careful statistical torture, so take the results with a pinch of numerical salt.

The easy winner of the Golden Throat Lozenge Award (for time on their feet) is Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan who spoke 396 times, uttering roughly 194,000 words.

He won the gong despite joining this parliament a few months late (arriving in March 2024 after the sad death of Efeso Collins). Xu-Nan’s tactical pleonism explains the following from Parliament final day:

Xu-Nan: “Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s actually not that common that I get two speeches back to back-what a treat!”. Speaker: “Well, why don’t you give us a treat and make it short.”

He didn’t.

Gerry Brownlee spoke twice more than Xu-Nan (398 times), but presiding officers are brief. Opposition MPs use their full 10 minutes every call if at all possible.

The top ten MPs for words spoken are all from the opposition (see below).

Government backbenchers say very little to defend their own bills (to save time), while opposition are wordy to slow things down (and give bills the fullest possible consideration), especially when bills skip select committees or are being considered under urgency.

MPs at the ‘vow of silence’ end of the list are mostly from National.

Other than recent arrivals the most taciturn were Melissa Lee (just 15 speeches) and Shane Reti (20). Both offered between 6000-7000 words.

The quietest opposition MPs are 13 and 15 places from the bottom. They were Adrian Rurawhe (25 speeches for nearly 14,000 words) and Jenny Salesa (30 speeches for a little over 12,281 words).

Major party leaders spend little time in the House, other than from question time and set-piece debates like the budget.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon managed just 18 speeches, but some were very long so his total words spoken (c. 27,000) raises him to 78th of 123 MPs. Labour leader Chris Hipkins beats him with 47 speeches for 38,000 words.

Minor leaders appear more often. David Seymour made 68 calls for 64,000 words, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer 87 for 62,000, Chloe Swarbrick 82 or 54,000, Winston Peters 47 for 36,00 and Rawiri Waititi 48 for 31,000 words.

Green co-leader Marama Davidson is not included, as multiple MPs named Davidson muddy the waters.

The most loquacious of the government ministers was Chris Bishop (208 speeches and 86,000 words). He has had a number of complex bills spend lengthy periods in the Committee of the Whole, and is a minister happy to answer questions and engage in that stage of deliberation.

Party speaking time

The largest parties get more allocated speaking slots, but only the opposition make full use of theirs.

As noted, the opposition also speak a lot during the unallocated Committee of the Whole stage. Whole days can go by when government backbenchers offer nothing except repeating “I move that debate on this question now close”, which is parliamentese for ‘please stop already’.

Public engagement

Gerry Brownlee reports: “73,000 people went through Parliament in tours this year-quite a large number. If you include visitors who came here for various meetings, that number goes up to 122,000. When you think about the number of people visiting here, it means that, I think, we have a strong democracy, and we’ve got to make sure that this place remains as open as it possibly can.”

The public have been visiting electronically as well.

The bills under debate have attracted an avalanche of public feedback that stretched Parliament’s secretariat until the poor clerks drowned in e-paper. Committees even found it necessary to restrict the extent of some of their reports back to the House (a core function).

It has been suggested to me that the quality of ministerial officials’ advice to committees (and presumably also to government) has degraded with so many different legislative plans for departments to consider.

Clerk of the House of Representatives David Wilson told the Standing Orders Committee, “Two Parliament ago there were 95,000 submissions which we thought was a lot. Now there are over 600,000 in this one.”

The most written submissions for this Parliament (or any Parliament) was the massive new record of 295,670 written submissions on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill.

Legislative process and urgency

The table below outlines the process of non-budgetary government bills over six parliaments (most recent on the left). Each parliament’s figures are truncated at a matching point in the Parliament’s progress. None are for a full three years.

The current government has introduced far more bills and skipped more select committees than any of the previous five.

The bills that did go through committees had their committee consideration time curtailed more than in any parliament except during John Key’s first government.

For more granular detail on the use of urgency by stage, the chart below is data from The Newsroom’s journalist Marc Daalder. In this case, numbers for previous parliaments are truncated to match the same number of calendar days as the current term has taken.

The 2025 sitting year included 87 sitting days and two weeks of full-time committee scrutiny of government in lieu of the House sitting.

Of the 87 sitting days, 13 did not start afresh, but were just continuations of the previous day. The 87 days broke down to:

Oversight of government

One of any parliament’s core roles is keeping a check on the government that is a subset of itself. This is possible because, constitutionally, governments are subservient to parliaments, though governments often try to eschew this relationship.

Oversight happens in various ways in the House and committees. Most are hard to measure, except the asking of formal questions of ministers.

Oral questions can be a key tool, but when ministers are allowed by Speakers to avoid answering questions they lose all potency, and written questions (which are harder to ignore) gain importance.

See this article for a more detailed, recent look at numbers around Select Committee workloads.

Thanks to The Office of the Clerk, Hansard and Marc Daalder for data.

RNZ’s The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament’s Office of the Clerk. Enjoy our articles or podcast at RNZ.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Department of Conservation says there have been ongoing dog attacks on little blue penguins around Auckland’s coastline.

The attacks have prompted DOC, conservation organisations, Auckland Council and mana whenua to urge dog owners to keep their pets under control, and well away from the rocky coastline, dunes and pest-free islands where kororā are found.

A recent spate of dog attacks at Piha and Te Henga have seen seven birds found dead in the last month.

DOC said it was a further blow to the species, which is already at risk of becoming threatened, due to a declining population.

DOC principal ranger in Auckland David Wilson said every year penguins and other wildlife were killed by dogs, but the seven penguins killed in the last month were “more than usual”.

“There’s too many dogs on the beaches,” he said. “There’s too many irresponsible owners, who aren’t supervising their dogs properly, and it’s just not acceptable for dogs to be killing wildlife in this way.”

His message to dog owners: “Don’t take your dogs where they’re not allowed.

“Know what the regulations are and keep your dogs under tight control at all times, and within your sight and supervision.”

He encouraged people to call DOC, if they saw an attack, and the council, if they saw a dog where it shouldn’t be.

Following rules not optional

Auckland Council animal management manager Elly Waitoa said bylaws restricted dog-walking in some areas and protected wildlife at certain times of the year.

“This is not optional. It isn’t just about bylaws – failure to control dogs and respect restricted areas puts vulnerable coastal wildlife at risk.

“Auckland Council’s animal management team will be patrolling the west coast beaches throughout summer and will issue infringements without hesitation to anyone who chooses to ignore the bylaws.”

Injured penguin put to sleep

Little blue penguins are a protected species, found on both the east and west coasts of Auckland, with colonies at Piha, Muriwai and Te Henga, and on many Hauraki Gulf/Tīkapa Moana islands, including Waiheke.

Earlier this month, DOC said a paddleboarder brought his dog illegally to Tiritiri Matangi island – a predator-free native wildlife sanctuary – where a penguin was found needing veterinary care just metres away on the beach.

Dr Rashi Parker, who is the fundraising manager for BirdCare Aotearoa – a native wildlife hospital and rehabilitation centre – said, while the dogs were just displaying dog-like behaviour, their owner’s actions led to incredible pain, distress and often irreversible injuries for the tiny penguins.

“The kororā rushed to us from Tiritiri Matangi was showing torticollis, a painful neck-twisting symptom, and we immediately administered pain relief,” she said. “Torticollis often comes about from ‘ragging’, when dogs bite and shake their prey.

“Although our clinical team tried to stabilise the patient over several days, it was no longer able to swim properly and had to be put to sleep.”

Parker said all their admissions this year were underweight and likely starving.

“The last thing these little penguins need are large predators roaming through their shelters and nests,” she said.

Te Kawerau Iwi Tiaki Trust chief executive Edward Ashby was angry dog attacks kept happening.

“Kororā are a taonga and all New Zealanders have a duty of care, as kaitiaki, to look out for them,” he said. “It’s part of our cultural capital to care for our environment and wildlife.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Wellington’s Harbourmaster says it’s important people check their equipment and the seaworthiness of their boats before heading on the water.

Maritime NZ’s latest annual report found in the 2024 to 2025 financial year there were 19 fatal recreational boating accidents.

The agency said the main factors included a lack of lifejackets and limited means of communication.

Grant Nalder told RNZ there were several ways people could alert people on land if they got into trouble.

“If you are on a paddle board or a kayak it could be like a rugby refs whistle, they are really good because people are going to hear them and start to investigate what it is.

“If you are going further afield a marine radio [or] a personal locator beacon.”

Nalder said the boats out on New Zealand’s waters were getting older, so people needed to maintain them.

“You know if you have got a car you can put it in a garage and change the battery, change the oil and you are away but a boat actually needs attention right throughout its life, and if it doesn’t get it, it starts getting difficult and expensive.”

He warned people of buying cheap old boats online.

“You get someone who might not know much about the boat but think they have just got a really good bargain and actually what they have got is a liability.

“Worst case is they get out somewhere on the water and it either takes on water or breaks down,” he said.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The global population is ageing, and New Zealand is no exception. Almost 20 percent of Kiwis are projected to be 65 or older by 2028, and like many other countries around the world, Aotearoa faces a shortage of healthcare and care workers to look after the elderly.

Could robots with the ability to perform everyday personal and household tasks help meet some of those needs?

Robots have some distinct advantages, robot designer Rich Walker tells Mihingarangi Forbes, speaking from London – but there’s some challenges and hurdles to overcome, and some big ethical considerations.

As the technology evolves, do we need to start asking ourselves how far we want it to go?

Walker is director of Shadow Robot, a UK company specialising in the design and manufacture of robotic hands. He is also an industry advocate for the ethical use of robotic technology.

Walker has played with robotics since being introduced to small robots at a computer camp as a child, where he tried to use them to move chess pieces around.

“I think if you grew up with science fiction, robots are a kind of natural lure, there’s a whole idea that you could build something that could be a companion, an assistant, a helper – a fun character to have in your life,” he says. “And then you find engineering, and you discover that it’s nothing like that, but it’s a lot more interesting in some ways.”

What robots can and can’t easily accomplish are widely misunderstood, because we look at it through our assumptions they will be able to behave like a human body.

In Japan, robots have been used in aged care facilities for more than a decade. But even so, he says “we’re a long way away from the dream of a robot that can wander around your house and do everything.

“I think what happened in Japan is they said ‘let’s give this a try, let’s get robots into care, let’s see what we can do and see how well it works’. And as you might expect the results are mixed. There are some places where actually you can do something quite useful, quite powerful and quite important, and then there are other places where people are just scratching their heads…”

Care work needs sensitivity, touch, judgement and gentleness, which are difficult for a robot to match our human capabilities for.

“If you look at a factory, you see the machinery in there – the robots in there do amazing things, over and over again, exactly the same.

“But if you’ve ever tried to wipe someone’s mouth, that’s never the same twice, that’s never the same experience, it’s never the same person you’re doing that with,” Walker says.

“So that’s really the problem for us, is: What are the jobs where a machine can be really useful and help and free people up to do other things? And what are the jobs where honestly you want to feel that you are engaged with a person – you are interacting with a person there?”

Some areas of human capability and some tasks are particularly difficult for robots – controlled and measured touch is at the top of the list. For example, robots still cannot use scissors.

“Partly it’s because what we do with our fingers is such an innate part of our brain, we have huge trouble thinking about it.

“We have this joke in robotics that if you ask a person in robotics how they’re holding their pen they’ll drop it straight away, because when you think about how you’re holding your pen you can’t do it anymore because it’s completely unconscious.

“And the problem with that is we said ‘oh yeah, it’ll be really difficult to get computers to play chess’ – well actually it wasn’t that difficult, you just needed big computers.

“But it turns out it’s really difficult to get robots to make a chess board, or set up a chess board, or indeed work out where the chess board is in the house and go and get it and come back, because the world is a very complicated and unpredictable place and robots work best in places that are … simple and well organised – not like my house.”

Designs to meet real needs

When parsing out the needs of aged care there have also been some big surprises, Walker says.

“We have conversations with local councils … they say things like ‘our biggest problem is how do we get someone to your house’. It’s not what they do when they’re there, it’s the travel time to get from one person to another to another.

“If you have to have three or four care visits a day, and someone has to travel half an hour for each visit, that’s quite a lot of the day taken up in that.

Things that can make a big difference can sometimes be quite simple, he says.

For instance, a washing machine isn’t normally thought of as a robot, but it is – and appropriate design can make a big difference when it comes to washing clothes for people living with incontinence. Or televisions or cell phones designed to have only a few buttons and channels are much more accessible for people with dementia.

“And a lot of this work, it’s not about clever-clever technology. It’s about saying what can we do to give this person back the independence they are starting to lose.

“And then, when they have carers come round, how can we make it so the carer can spend the time on the human element, not doing a mechanical task that could be done by something else to actually engage with the person, to give them dignity.”

Globally, the need is huge, Walker says.

• Hospitals short an average of 587 nurses every shift last year – report
• Aged care sector in crisis

“This is a big challenge, it is a big problem. Almost every country in the world has the same problem, their populations are ageing, their infrastructure could be better. Robot technology will play a big part in that – and particularly … infrastructure.

University of Auckland research tested using a robot called Bomy at two Auckland retirement villages, to help with daily routines. supplied by University of Auckland

Things like: “Self-driving cars, robots that can repair bridges or build roads or repair railways or just inspect railways. These will make a huge difference. And some of these things will free up humans so they can do more human tasks.”

Even with a belief that this is the direction things are going, the acceleration in commercial manufacturing of some robot appliances has been a surprise, he says.

“We’ve been very surprised by how cheap the recent wave of robots coming out of China are – and we’d always said that robots are going to be very expensive, that they’ll be something that governments buy and councils buy, and companies buy.

“But actually it’s starting to look like maybe when you manufacture them in very large quantities they don’t have to be super super expensive.

“So I don’t know yet how we will end up having a society where people have robots in the homes – I mean we’ve seen robot vacuum cleaners, and we’ve seen robot lawn mowers, and there are robots like that, they do exist, so it is possible.”

Caution warranted

Despite the promise, it’s sensible to take a cautious approach on robots, he says.

“If I tell you I’m putting something that weighs 150 kilos and will move at 7 miles an hour in your living room, you’re going to want to know that that’s not going to trap you up against a wall and stop, right. Because that would be very very difficult for you and possibly dangerous.

“So people who are building systems have to go in and say: ‘How do we make these systems safe, and how can we make sure that people trust them? – And you can’t build trust by saying ‘I know better’. You have to build trust by saying ‘how can I show you that this is safe and reliable and robust?’

One of the most impressive robots already being used in care environments is a small furry seal called Paro, which was designed as a companion for people who could no longer have a pet or handle one.

Paro the seal, a robot companion animal.

“It gets used in care for people with dementia. It’s a little thing, it sits on your lap, you stroke it. It’s quite warm and it has a couple of little movements it makes and it makes a thing a bit like a purr, and it’s very comforting, and it’s a robot.

“No-one’s going to feel threatened by it, no-one’s going to feel scared by it, and there’s not much it can do to go wrong, but it has fantastic value to people’s well-being… this is something they can cope with.”

Walker says any discussions about robotics for use in aged care need to include consideration that companies creating and selling robotics must earn trust – “it’s not an automatic”.

Regulation is necessary, he says.

“Particularly when we’re dealing with people who are vulnerable or in need of additional support or help, that we make sure that what they’re getting is right.

“I’m not a fan of government, but I recognise that in this case you have to start by having legislation, regulation, laws that say these things must be safe, this is how they must be safe, they musn’t be deceptive – the robot shouldn’t pretend to be something [they aren’t].

“There’s a whole package that needs working out, how we treat these things, because they will come into our lives and we need to make sure that we benefit from them.”

Is it healthy for the lonely and isolated to develop a relationship with AI and robots? It’s a fascinating question, Walker says.

“I don’t think any of us would have guessed how all-encompassing it’s possible to be with ChatGPT and with tools like that. There’s a long history of that in robotics, in artificial intelligence, where people make things you could chat to that seemed intelligent and people do get sucked in, people do really enjoy it.

“And I think there’s a wider question there – it’s like false advertising, we have laws about advertising, you’re not allowed to promise things that are not true of your products. Are we being promised things that are not true around the chatbots like ChatGPT? – I’m not sure.

“But if we are then we should definitely make sure that doesn’t happen. Because the last thing you do want is somebody who is sitting at home with a useful system that can help them, but is deceiving them, is playing mind games with them. Because it can, and it’s able to. And if we haven’t regulated that, that would be a great shame.”

Technical challenges and milestones

Shadow Robot’s Dexterous Robot Hand using a delicate grip to grasp blocks. Matt Lincoln

Some of the Robotic hands Walker works with have more than 100 sensors and have reached the milestone of being able to solve a Rubik’s Cube using a single hand.

The programming behind that is just as crucial as the physical design, and determines how it puts the physical capability to good use, he says. And after the programming there is one more step, training. That teaches the robot which of the things it is capable of are doing are things you want to happen, and details like what order to do something, or in what manner.

Robots can be trained using reinforcement learning, Walker says.

“You do the same as if you’re training a pet … you give it a reward when it does the thing right, and it gradually learns over time what things are right and what things are wrong.”

Walker is taking part in the UK government’s ARIA Robot Dexterity Programme, a high risk, high reward swing at finding ways to solve challenges in robotic dexterity, to create more capable and useful machines.

“Really, it’s the absolute cutting edge of materials science is trying to make things that behave like the muscles of the human body.”

Skin is another fascinating problem, since human skin grows back if it’s damaged, or it can thicken and become more robust by forming calluses. He hopes new learning will come out of the intersections between biology, medicine and robotics.

“Those processes through which things recreate themselves so we can continue to use them, that’s again one of those things where we go ‘wow, if we could do that, it would be transformative!'”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand