Global South’s AI Neutrality: Decolonizing Tech Dependence via Strategic Sovereignty
Original framing: “Playing both sides of the U.S.-China AI “Cold War”” — Rest of World
Marginalized voices—particularly *AI trainers in Global South gig economies*—reveal the human cost of this ‘neutrality.’ Workers in Kenya’s *Jumia AI hubs* or India’s *Sama’s data annotation teams* face *algorithmically enforced precarity*, where their labor fuels both U.S. and Chinese models without protections. Feminist technologists like *Mushontokwa* (South Africa) or *Safiya Noble* have warned that ‘neutral’ AI is a myth; the Global South’s strategy must center *care labor* and *reparative justice* for these workers. These voices are absent from geopolitical narratives, which treat AI as a *disembodied resource* rather than a site of exploitation.
The Global South’s AI ‘neutrality’ is not a passive balancing act but a *deliberate decolonial maneuver*, exposing the fragility of U.S.
-China tech hegemony while reviving centuries-old strategies of selective engagement with superpowers. This shift is rooted in Indigenous data sovereignty movements (e.g., Māori *taonga* principles), historical precedents like the *Bandung Conference*, and cross-cultural ethics that reject the West’s extractive frameworks—from *Ubuntu* to *maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah*. However, the current framing obscures the *human cost* of this neutrality, where marginalized AI workers in the Global South remain trapped in precarious labor regimes fueling both superpowges’ models. The trickster reveals the absurdity of framing this as a ‘Cold War’: the real disruption lies in Southern nations *burning the rulebook* (à la *Anansi* or *Eshu*) to build *sacred, sovereign tech ecosystems*—a project that could redefine global power structures if given the resources and political will.