The current trajectory of Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation has consolidated the neocolonial structures of development. Today, a handful of US and Chinese transnational corporations dominate global AI systems. Driven by massive capital, semiconductor manufacturing dominance, and hyperscale cloud infrastructure, these companies control over 90% of global AI data center capacity. Their market capitalization exceeds the combined national income of many countries in the Global South. The wealth and power amassed by these corporations come at a staggering cost, borne disproportionately by the South. From the devalued, dehumanizing labor that is essential for training AI models to the critical minerals, land, energy, and water, communities in the South continue to provide the scaffolding for the AI economy and society, without the voice and power to shape and benefit from this paradigm. For people from the Global South, these systemic injustices perpetuate deep dependencies on current and future infrastructures — over which they lack control and sovereign agency.
Against this backdrop, Global Digital Justice Forum (GDJF) and the Global South Alliance (GSA) ‘s joint statement exhorts the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance to deliver on a South-led AI paradigm, anchored in a vision of rights-based development, respectful of planetary boundaries, and committed to intergenerational justice and human rights. We believe that the emerging AI order lacks legitimacy; it grants unbridled impunity to powerful corporations, while reducing humanity and nature to objects of limitless extraction. The many summits and conversations about AI governance have failed to tackle these core issues.
The GDJF-GSA joint statement urges that the Global Dialogue on AI Governance commit to the following:
- End AI extractivism
- Apply the Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) principle in international AI cooperation
- Address corporate impunity in data and AI value chains
- Design a data governance framework that delivers on global equity
- Invest in the development of global public compute
Read the full statement here.