AI Got No Dreaming: Defending Indigenous Rights in the Digital Age

11 August 25

By Dr Terri Janke

Every year, the 9^th of August marks the International Day of the World’s Indigenous peoples. This year’s theme – AI: Defending Rights, Shaping Future – is becoming increasingly urgent as AI develops at an exponential pace.

In an interview with ABC’s Radio National’s Sally Sara (listen here), Dr Terri Janke highlighted the promise and peril of artificial intelligence for First Nations peoples. AI can preserve languages, share stories, and connect generations. But without safeguards, it risks accelerating cultural exploitation, erasing context, and deepening the digital divide.

Photo by Will Horner

For Indigenous Peoples, cultural knowledge is born from Country, language, and community, and carries responsibility. It is their Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP). Yet AI systems are often built without Indigenous participation or consent, using and appropriating their images, art, and knowledge with no attribution or benefit-sharing. For example, in recent times, we have been witnessing rising cases of AI scraping from Indigenous art centres websites for AI-generated design – erasing the original First Nations artist’s name, altering the work, and undermining the cultural significance of the piece. This causes harm to Indigenous people and their cultures.

In the absence of specific laws, ICIP protocols should guide developers and deployers. But new, dedicated laws are also needed.

Indigenous Data Sovereignty returns the power to Indigenous Peoples, enabling them to determine how their data – stories, languages, and identities – are collected, used and shared. AI development must require Indigenous consultation at all stages to avoid perpetuating and amplifying a pattern of cultural erasure.

As Dr Janke told the ABC: ‘Technology should serve culture, not strip it for parts. AI has no Dreaming. It does not know Country, carry kinship, or hold the responsibilities that come with cultural knowledge.’

AI can be a powerful tool for cultural revitalisation and self-determination, and for Australian innovation. But when it comes to use of ICIP and Indigenous Data, the processes must be Indigenous-informed and Indigenous-led.

To learn more about safeguards, check out our blog "Keeping our Data Strong"