Application of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems to AI Ethics Research and Education: A Conceptual Overview

Abstract African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) holds an epistemology that is different from that of the Western world with massive potential to add substantial value in various fields of applied ethics. One of the dominant fields of applied ethics studied today is artificial intelligence (AI) ethics. With the ever-evolving innovations associated with AI especially at the global scale, the AI ethics field continues to grow and develop with implications that are far-reaching. This implies that people of multiple cultural backgrounds are potentially impacted. Particularly, there has been an underrepresentation of non-Western ideologies in literature. Additionally, scholars expressed the need for alternative methods for studying and improving AI ethics research and education. Therefore, from a theoretical standpoint, how can African IKS be applied to AI ethics education and research community? Based on a 2019 publication by African scholars in the International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education (IJHSSE), the authors highlight seven sub-theories of African IKS. The sub-theories are communalism, functionalism, holisticism, preparedness, perennialism, vitalism, and indigenous standpoint theory (relative to Africans). In this paper, each of those theories and relevant applications to current AI ethics education and research practices, are discussed. The conceptual descriptions help to communicate the value of utilizing African IKS when practicing and researching AI ethics. One of the key implications of this paper is to highlight the excellent work done by African scholars and support African representation in Western literature. Another is also to highlight alternative theoretical foundations that can be used and included when conducting AI ethics research.