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6. Socioeconomic and Environmental3 - Other

Cultural dispossession

Cultural dispossession - Intentional and/or unintentional erasure of cultural goods and values, such as ways of speaking, expressing humour, or sounds and voices that contribute to a cultural identity, or their inappropriate re-use in other cultures.

Source: MIT AI Risk Repositorymit968

ENTITY

3 - Other

INTENT

3 - Other

TIMING

3 - Other

Risk ID

mit968

Domain lineage

6. Socioeconomic and Environmental

262 mapped risks

6.3 > Economic and cultural devaluation of human effort

Mitigation strategy

1. **Establish and Enforce Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Consent Frameworks:** Mandate the adoption of protocols such as Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) and Indigenous Data Governance principles (e.g., OCAP) for all data collection, model training, and utilization concerning cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and identity. This is a structural requirement to ensure communities retain control and ownership over their intangible assets in the digital sphere. 2. **Integrate Traditional Governance and Knowledge into AI Development:** Require the meaningful and structural inclusion of Indigenous communities and their customary governance systems in the design, decision-making, and regulatory frameworks for AI systems. This prevents the erasure of cultural values and ensures that technological applications are culturally grounded and enhance, rather than supplant, traditional knowledge systems. 3. **Implement Algorithmic Fairness and Bias Mitigation:** Enact rigorous technical and policy standards, including comprehensive auditing and the use of diverse, representative datasets, to mitigate algorithmic bias. This action is critical to prevent AI systems from reinforcing historical misrepresentations, exclusion, or the inappropriate re-use of cultural elements.