Artificial intelligence should be built alongside Indigenous peoples, not by erasing their wisdom

As Australia celebrates the 50th anniversary of NAIDOC Week, honoring the world's oldest living culture, humanity's newest technology, artificial intelligence, has not yet fully reckoned with the principle of "nothing about us without us".

A growing chorus in the technology sector and academia is concerned that artificial intelligence (AI), like previous technologies, risks becoming a colonial tool by collecting knowledge without the permission, contribution, or reciprocity of Indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples and their allies in North America, Australia, and Africa argue that traditional knowledge and cultural data, which make up a significant portion of the data used to train AI models, are being used unfairly.

This awareness is triggering the formation of new ethical frameworks that bring calls for data sovereignty and ethical design to the agenda, mandating the inclusion of Indigenous peoples in technology development processes.

Experts emphasize that for AI to be fair and sustainable, technology companies must partner with Indigenous peoples and establish legal mechanisms to prevent the extraction of cultural data without their consent.