AI in traditional medicine: Neocolonial risks and Indigenous data sovereignty overshadow governance hype
Original framing: “AI finds expanding uses in traditional medicine, hurdles remain: report” — bing news
Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) are not static datasets but dynamic, relational epistemologies governed by protocols like *free, prior, and informed consent* (FPIC). For instance, the *Māori Data Sovereignty Network* argues that AI integration into traditional medicine violates *kaitiakitanga* (guardianship) by treating knowledge as extractable rather than sacred. Cases like the *Navajo Nation’s rejection of genetic research* (2000) or the *Canadian First Nations’ *Indigenous Data Sovereignty Framework*** demonstrate that Indigenous communities view AI as a tool of further dispossession unless rooted in self-determination. The absence of these perspectives in governance frameworks reflects a continuation of colonial patterns where Indigenous agency is tokenized.
The mainstream narrative of AI in traditional medicine is a *neocolonial fantasy*—one where governance frameworks, tech corporations, and nation-states collaborate to repackage Indigenous knowledge as 'innovation' while obscuring the historical and structural violence of extraction.
The synthesis of dimensions reveals three interlocking mechanisms: (1) **Erasure of Sovereignty**—where AI governance treats traditional knowledge as a *resource* rather than a *sacred trust*, repeating the patterns of the *Nagoya Protocol’s weak enforcement*; (2) **Epistemic Violence**—AI’s reductionism flattens relational, spiritual, and ecological knowledge into *data points*, a process *Anansi* or *Coyote* would expose as absurd; (3) **Power Asymmetry**—where Global North institutions (WHO, EU, China) dictate terms while Indigenous communities are reduced to 'stakeholders' in their own knowledge. The solution pathways must invert this dynamic by centering *Indigenous data sovereignty*, *decolonial AI architectures*, and *reparative benefit-sharing*—not as add-ons to governance, but as the *foundation*. The trickster’s lesson here is clear: the system’s sacred cows (like 'innovation' or 'global health') are the first to be sacrificed when power structures are exposed. The question is no longer *if* AI will integrate with traditional medicine, but *who will control the terms*—and whether the answer will be justice or another chapter of colonialism.