What Can People Do To Counter AI Colonization?

In my previous post, "The Movement to Decolonize AI," I discussed the burgeoning social movement to reclaim knowledge, culture, and human agency in the age of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming our world. From the information we consume to the decisions that influence our daily lives, AI is becoming an increasingly powerful force in shaping human experience. Yet beneath the promise of technological progress lies a growing concern: Who controls artificial intelligence, whose knowledge does it represent, and who benefits from its development?

The concept of AI colonization describes the concentration of technological power in the hands of a relatively small number of corporations, governments, and institutions, often at the expense of local communities, Indigenous peoples, cultural traditions, and individual autonomy. Just as historical colonialism involved the extraction of land, natural resources, and cultural knowledge, digital colonization can involve the extraction of human data, intellectual property, languages, and collective knowledge. Countering this trend requires more than simply becoming better at using technology. It requires individuals and communities to become conscious participants in determining how AI develops and whose interests it serves.

So, what can ordinary people actually do?

1. Become Digitally Conscious

The first step is understanding how artificial intelligence works and recognizing the power structures behind it. AI systems are not neutral reflections of reality. They are developed using human-created data, programmed by people, and influenced by the economic and cultural priorities of their creators.

Concrete actions:

• Learn how AI algorithms collect, process, and use personal information.
• Question the accuracy and cultural assumptions behind AI-generated answers.
• Compare AI responses with independent sources, particularly when discussing history, science, and Indigenous cultures.
• Learn to recognize algorithmic bias, misinformation, and automated manipulation.
• Teach children and young adults to think critically about AI rather than accepting its output as unquestionable truth.

An informed public is much harder to manipulate.

2. Take Control of Your Personal Data

Personal information has become one of the most valuable resources in the digital economy. Conversations, photographs, browsing behavior, purchasing habits, and other activities can become commercial assets. Individuals can resist excessive data extraction by becoming more deliberate about what they share.

Concrete actions:

• Review privacy settings on social media accounts and AI platforms.
• Disable optional data-sharing and model-training features when available.
• Avoid uploading sensitive personal documents, private photographs, or confidential conversations unnecessarily.
• Use strong, unique passwords and multifactor authentication.
• Delete unused accounts and applications that continue collecting information.
• Read the privacy policies of AI services before providing personal information.

Consider personal data an extension of personal sovereignty. You should have meaningful choices about how information concerning your life is collected and used.

3. Support Indigenous Data Sovereignty

Indigenous knowledge includes traditional ecological practices, languages, oral histories, medicinal knowledge, spiritual traditions, and relationships with ancestral territories. These forms of knowledge should not automatically become public resources simply because they can be digitized. Indigenous data sovereignty recognizes the right of Indigenous peoples to govern the collection, ownership, storage, interpretation, and use of information concerning their communities. Once a resource has been appropriated, it is almost impossible to claim it back, as evidenced by the fact that the Doctrine of Discovery is still cited in contemporary government decisions to deny Indigenous people rights over their lands.

Concrete actions:

• Support Indigenous-led technology organizations and digital preservation projects.
• Learn about the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance: Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics.
• Advocate for informed consent before Indigenous cultural knowledge is incorporated into AI training datasets.
• Respect restrictions surrounding sacred stories, ceremonies, traditional medicines, and culturally protected information.
• Purchase books, artwork, music, and educational materials directly from Indigenous creators when possible.
• Amplify Indigenous voices discussing technology, sovereignty, and cultural preservation.

The principle is simple: Communities should have the authority to decide what knowledge they share, how it is represented, and who may benefit from it.

4. Choose Technology That Distributes Power

One way to challenge technological concentration is to support alternatives to centralized corporate platforms. Open-source AI projects can make software, models, and development tools more accessible to researchers, educators, independent developers, and communities.

Concrete actions:

• Explore open-source AI alternatives rather than relying exclusively on major commercial platforms.
• Support independent developers and community-owned technology initiatives.
• Donate to nonprofit organizations working on digital rights and technological accountability.
• Encourage schools, libraries, and community organizations to explore locally controlled technology.
• Ask technology providers whether users can access, transfer, or delete their data.
• Support public-interest research that makes AI more accessible and accountable.

Imagine rural communities developing AI tools to monitor local ecosystems, Indigenous organizations creating language technologies under their own governance, or neighborhood cooperatives using AI to address local problems. Technology should adapt to the needs of communities rather than requiring communities to adapt to corporate priorities.

5. Protect Cultural and Linguistic Diversity

AI systems often perform best in languages and cultural contexts that dominate their training data. This creates a digital imbalance in which some societies receive sophisticated technological tools while others remain poorly represented.

Concrete actions:

• Support endangered-language preservation programs.
• Purchase literature and educational resources from underrepresented cultural communities.
• Encourage libraries and museums to develop community-controlled digital archives.
• Support local storytelling, oral history, and traditional arts programs.
• Advocate for AI systems that recognize linguistic diversity and cultural differences.
• Ask who controls cultural materials before contributing photographs, recordings, or historical documents to digital databases.

Cultural diversity should be protected, not harvested.

6. Demand Accountability From Governments and Corporations

Individual choices matter, but meaningful change also requires collective action. Governments should establish protections against discriminatory algorithms, unauthorized data collection, invasive surveillance, and the exploitation of cultural knowledge.

Concrete actions:

• Contact elected representatives and ask them to support meaningful AI transparency and privacy legislation.
• Participate in public discussions about AI regulation and digital rights.
• Support organizations advocating for algorithmic accountability.
• Ask employers and educational institutions how they use AI to evaluate people.
• Question automated decisions that affect employment, credit, healthcare, and access to public services.
• Support independent investigations into corporate surveillance and AI discrimination.

AI governance should not be left exclusively to the corporations developing these systems. The public deserves a voice in determining technologies that increasingly influence society.

7. Preserve Human Intelligence and Independent Thought

Perhaps the most important response to AI colonization is protecting our own capacity to think independently. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly sophisticated, there is a danger that people will gradually surrender their judgment, creativity, and intellectual curiosity to automated systems.

Concrete actions:

• Read books and develop opinions without relying exclusively on AI-generated summaries.
• Practice writing, creating, researching, and problem-solving independently.
• Spend time outdoors observing the natural world rather than experiencing it through digital screens.
• Learn traditional skills, crafts, music, and cultural practices.
• Participate in face-to-face community gatherings and discussions.
• Question AI recommendations rather than automatically following them.
• Establish periods of digital disconnection to reconnect with direct human experience.

Wisdom develops through relationships, observation, emotional understanding, mistakes, imagination, and direct engagement with the world. These are dimensions of human intelligence that cannot be reduced to computational efficiency.

Reclaiming the Future of Technology

Countering AI colonization does not mean rejecting artificial intelligence or returning to a pre-digital world. It means refusing to accept that technological progress must come at the expense of cultural autonomy, environmental responsibility, human dignity, or democratic participation. The future of AI should not be determined exclusively by the wealthiest corporations or the most technologically powerful nations. It should reflect the knowledge, experiences, values, and aspirations of humanity's many cultures and communities.

Ultimately, the movement to counter AI colonization is about reclaiming the right to participate in shaping our collective future. We must remember that technology is a human creation. It should serve life rather than dominate it, strengthen communities rather than extract from them, and expand human possibilities rather than diminish human freedom.

The question is not simply what artificial intelligence will become. The deeper question is what kind of humanity we want to become alongside it. The future of intelligence should belong to everyone--not just those who own the machines.