The Coloniality Problem in Artificial Intelligence Systems and the Call for Decoloniality

While the impacts of artificial intelligence technologies in fields such as healthcare, education, finance, and security are debated, a more fundamental issue overlooked in mainstream technologies remains: the problem of coloniality.

Artificial intelligence systems sustain power imbalances reflecting colonial exploitation through data practices, labor exploitation, and governance models. Epistemic hierarchies that neglect the knowledge resources of the Global South and structural inequalities that persist following formal postcoloniality feed this problem.

Knowledge production, technological design, and deployment processes often reproduce historical patterns of control and exploitation in the forms of data colonialism, algorithmic colonialism, or AI colonialism.

The author calls for decoloniality as a critical approach in computing practices and education, and advocates for its explicit recognition within the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.