Abraham, Itoro and Zhu, Ruilin and Honary, Mahsa (2025) AI ETHICAL CHALLENGES : A PERSPECTIVE OF AI DEVELOPERS IN POSTCOLONIAL COUNTRIES. In: European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) 2025, 2025-06-16 - 2025-06-18.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
This paper investigates the ethical challenges intrinsic to artificial intelligence (AI) development in postcolonial contexts, focusing on West Africa. Despite AI's potential for socio-economic transformation, the lack of robust local data, context-specific research, and informed governance increases the risk of unethical outcomes (Mittelstadt, 2019). AI systems often imported from the Global North can perpetuate Western-centric biases and algorithmic injustices (Birhane, 2020; Couldry & Mejias, 2019). AI developers in these regions occupy a crucial mediating role. They must adopt foreign technologies while confronting ethical dilemmas rooted in historical power asymmetries. This study draws on critical social theory (Myers & Klein, 2011) and postcolonial perspectives (Ashcroft et al., 2011) to explore how colonial residues continue to shape contemporary AI ecosystems. Based on forty five qualitative interviews in Ghana and Nigeria, the paper illuminates developers' constraints, motivations, and ethical dilemmas.