This manyfesto is a provocation, a question, an opening, a dance about a future of AI technologies that is decolonial. We call it manyfesto, since it reflects some visions among many, and we hope to invite exchange, conversation, and the development of statements from people affected by AI technology. We begin with the challenge posed by the language we use to talk about AI: language that has emerged, as much of the technology has, dominated by Western male voices, whiteness, and wealth. We seek to uncover, to question, upend, and reinvent the assumptions underlying this language, even as we use it. "Artificial" and "intelligence" are loaded terms, their definitions subject to cultural biases.

Sometimes it's tempting to think of every technological advancement as the brave first step on new shores, a fresh chance to shape the future rationally. In reality, every new tool enters the same old world with its same unresolved issues. In a moment where society is collectively reckoning with just how deep the roots of racism reach, a new paper from researchers at DeepMind -- the AI lab and sister company to Google -- and the University of Oxford presents a vision to "decolonize" artificial intelligence. The aim is to keep society's ugly prejudices from being reproduced and amplified by today's powerful machine learning systems. The paper, published this month in the journal Philosophy & Technology, has at heart the idea that you have to understand historical context to understand why technology can be biased.

This paper explores the important role of critical science, and in particular of post-colonial and decolonial theories, in understanding and shaping the ongoing advances in artificial intelligence. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is viewed as amongst the technological advances that will reshape modern societies and their relations. Whilst the design and deployment of systems that continually adapt holds the promise of far-reaching positive change, they simultaneously pose significant risks, especially to already vulnerable peoples. Values and power are central to this discussion. Decolonial theories use historical hindsight to explain patterns of power that shape our intellectual, political, economic, and social world. By embedding a decolonial critical approach within its technical practice, AI communities can develop foresight and tactics that can better align research and technology development with established ethical principles, centring vulnerable peoples who continue to bear the brunt of negative impacts of innovation and scientific progress. We highlight problematic applications that are instances of coloniality, and using a decolonial lens, submit three tactics that can form a decolonial field of artificial intelligence: creating a critical technical practice of AI, seeking reverse tutelage and reverse pedagogies, and the renewal of affective and political communities. The years ahead will usher in a wave of new scientific breakthroughs and technologies driven by AI research, making it incumbent upon AI communities to strengthen the social contract through ethical foresight and the multiplicity of intellectual perspectives available to us; ultimately supporting future technologies that enable greater well-being, with the goal of beneficence and justice for all.