Abstract Artificial intelligence (AI) is widely framed as a driver of development in postcolonial contexts, yet its adoption may reproduce entrenched inequalities. This study presents a critical synthesis of 50 peer-reviewed articles (2019–2025), drawing on postcolonial theory to examine how AI systems embed and extend global power asymmetries. The analysis identifies four interrelated dynamics, algorithmic colonialism, data colonialism, platform imperialism, and platform sub-imperialism, through which dependency and domination are reproduced across global and intra-South contexts. These dynamics operate through four mechanisms: epistemic templating, governance transfer, infrastructural lock-in, and labour opacity, producing ethical harms such as accountability deficits, epistemic injustice, labour precarity, and constrained sovereignty. While forms of resistance exist, including localisation efforts and Indigenous ethical frameworks, they remain structurally limited. By reframing AI ethics as a political-economic challenge rather than a technical issue, this study contributes a contextually grounded framework for understanding and addressing ethical AI in postcolonial societies.
Itoro Abraham (Wed,) studied this question.
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