Watch children discover a sophisticated toy. They will marvel at the effects and imitate the gestures shown to them. But, they will remain completely unaware of the mechanisms that animate the object. This image can illustrate our current relationship with artificial intelligence, especially on the African continent.
Google’s recent announcement to invest $37 million in African AI naturally generates enthusiasm. Training, research, linguistic inclusion, local startups: the setting seems ideal for an African technological revolution. But what do these dazzling spotlights hide?
Behind the generosity lies a market strategy. Google doesn’t fund out of philanthropy but to position its tools, standards, and programming languages as continental references. While we applaud the inclusion of 40 African languages in its models, the Californian firm quietly shapes our future developers according to its vision of the digital world. Similarly, initiatives like Meta’s, which uses low-wage workers in Africa to process millions of videos, highlight a dynamic where the continent provides the digital raw material but does not always control the decision-making levers.
Is this not a repetition of past patterns, where Africa provided natural resources without controlling their transformation or added value? The illusion of technical progress, without critical and strategic appropriation, traps us in modern forms of servitude. True innovation lies not only in adopting tools but in our ability to reinvent them, to produce our own digital narratives and dictionaries.
How, then, can we transform this “epistemic dependence” into “narrative, educational, and cultural sovereignty”? The question is not to reject foreign investments, but to ensure that they serve our long-term interests. This requires developing African leadership founded on “contagious courage”, capable of “saying no to injustice, even alone” , and of “rethinking our institutions to integrate memory, criticism, and popular participation”. It is time to move from the role of spectator to that of playwright of our own digital future.
By Esimba Ifonge