Africa must end the AI extraction economy now
- Geci Karuri-Sebina, Farai Mlambo, Beatrice Bonami, Kholiswa Malindini, Angella Ndaka
To secure our future, Africa needs a strategic pivot—a move from extraction to agency. This shift must be understood through a powerful domestic lens.
Africa stands at a critical crossroads in the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) economy. If the continent fails to act with conviction, it risks repeating a familiar, extractive pattern: being positioned as a consumer and a supplier of raw data while global powers and major corporations consolidate control over the algorithms and infrastructure that shape the future.
This is not a theoretical debate. AI is not a side issue; it is an economic governance challenge that will determine who captures value, who holds power, and whose interests technology ultimately serves for decades to come.
Read the full article as published on the Mail & Guardian website.