Global AI governance debate excludes Global South voices, revealing systemic power imbalances
Original framing: “The West is debating AI’s future with half the world absent” — South China Morning Post
Empirical studies demonstrate that AI‑driven productivity gains are highly contingent on existing digital infrastructure, education levels, and regulatory environments, which vary dramatically across regions. Robust, interdisciplinary research is needed to model differential diffusion pathways and to design safeguards against systemic bias.
The AI debate, as framed by Western academia, reproduces historic patterns of technological colonialism by sidelining the very societies that will experience its most profound transformations.
Integrating Indigenous data sovereignty, African communal resilience, Indian frugal innovation, and Latin American care ethics creates a pluralistic governance architecture capable of redistributing AI's benefits. Scientific modelling, enriched by cross‑cultural scenario planning, demonstrates that equitable outcomes are achievable only through enforceable international charters, targeted capacity building, and participatory impact assessments. By invoking the trickster’s inversion, we expose the paradox of a few claiming authority over a technology that will reshape billions, compelling policymakers to hand over narrative power to marginalized voices. This systemic re‑orientation promises an AI future that is not a repeat of the Industrial Revolution’s inequities but a collaborative evolution of global knowledge.