AI, Africa, and the politics of repair
I joined a panel at LSE today on “Who Writes the Algorithm: AI, Africa and the Politics of Repair.” Good conversation. But I left feeling we are still not stating the harder implications clearly enough.
Who writes the algorithm matters. But the more structural question is: whose knowledge was the system built on? Because the algorithm is not just code. It is the outcome of training data, and that data reflects specific histories, geographies, and power structures.
Africa has over 2,000 languages, most of these are absent from the datasets underpinning today’s AI compared to western data. What these systems know about Africa was learned largely through external narratives and external priorities. That is not a technical gap but a structural one.
Three things stayed with me from the conversation.
Africa plays a central role in the AI value chain through mineral extraction but captures very little downstream value. African journalism , rigorous, fact-checked, locally grounded, is training AI systems while major licensing deals flow almost exclusively to Western media institutions. And millions across the continent are forming their understanding of AI through constrained, outdated interfaces — shaping not just usage but governance conversations.
One tension worth naming is that much of Africa’s AI governance work is funded, directly or indirectly, by the companies those frameworks are meant to hold accountable. That helps explain why policy conversations emphasise opportunity while staying quiet on extraction and dependency.
Repair, if we take it seriously, is not inclusion or capacity building. It is about ownership, governance, and distribution. It means Africa moving from being a source of raw materials and raw data to being a site of decision-making and value creation.
That is what the politics of repair actually demands.
I will write a more expanded article on this in the coming days.
At the London School of Economics in London to speak on AI, Africa, and the politics of repair. The question isn’t whether AI will shape Africa’s future, it is who gets to write the algorithm. Excited about the summit!