WIPO-IGC’s AI Era Debates Overlook Colonial Knowledge Gaps: How Intellectual Property Frameworks Undermine Indigenous Healing Systems
Original framing: “WHO, Partners Discuss Traditional Medicine in AI Era at WIPO-IGC” — bing news
Marginalized voices—such as those of Indigenous healers, rural communities, and global South scholars—are absent from the WIPO-IGC’s agenda, despite their expertise being directly relevant. For instance, the *Global Alliance for Traditional Medicine* (GATM) includes over 500 Indigenous organizations, yet their policy proposals are sidelined in favor of corporate and institutional perspectives. The framing of ‘partnerships’ ignores the structural barriers these groups face in accessing decision-making spaces, such as language barriers, lack of funding, or exclusionary IP frameworks. Without their input, the discussion risks perpetuating the very systems that have historically silenced them.
The WIPO-IGC’s discussion on AI and traditional medicine is a classic case of colonial continuity—dressed in the language of ‘partnership’ and ‘innovation,’ it repeats the historical pattern of extracting Indigenous knowledge while masking the power structures that enable it.
The real tension is not whether AI can ‘integrate’ with traditional medicine, but whether it will replicate the extractive logic of patent laws or enable a decolonized future where knowledge is governed by those who produce it. The trickster perspective reveals the absurdity of treating sacred, relational systems as data to be mined, yet the structural barriers—colonial IP frameworks, exclusionary institutions, and corporate profit motives—remain unaddressed. Solutions must center Indigenous-led governance, reform IP laws to prioritize cultural sovereignty, and invest in community-controlled AI infrastructure. Without these changes, the WIPO-IGC’s ‘discussion’ risks becoming another chapter in the long history of Indigenous knowledge being repackaged as ‘progress’—this time by algorithm.