The Invisible Algorithm: How Modern AI Still Thinks Like a Colonizer

Artificial Intelligence promises neutrality. But what if the very logic driving our most advanced systems—GPT-4, Siri, Google Assistant—still echoes colonial frameworks? What if intelligence, even when automated, still centers empire?

Fanon warned that identity shaped under domination cannot be trusted without deconstruction. And yet, every day, we interact with AI systems built on Western data sets, institutional biases, and silent assumptions of what is "normal," "professional," or "human."

AI Isn't Neutral—It’s Programmed

AI isn’t born in a vacuum. It feeds on what we give it. Language models are trained on news articles, literature, policies, and digital archives that disproportionately reflect colonial values. When ChatGPT hesitates to validate certain cultural truths but quickly upholds Western logic, that’s not coincidence—it’s architecture.

The Algorithmic Plantation

Consider this: If the plantation encoded superiority in skin and labor, today's algorithm encodes it in voice, grammar, and politeness. The colonizer's voice is not just echoed—it's rewarded. Accents are flattened. Anger is flagged. Identity becomes a filter risk, not a value input.

We don’t just use AI. We’re shaped by it. It mirrors back who the system believes we are—or worse, who it prefers us to be.

Where Fanon Meets the Future

What would a decolonized AI system look like? One that doesn't just translate, but interrogates. One that doesn’t just answer, but resists. Fanon’s psychoanalytic and revolutionary frameworks hold the key to dismantling the silent structures baked into tech.

Not by rejecting AI—but by reprogramming it with memory, resistance, and sovereignty.