Transnational AI and Corporate Imperialism
Chinmayi Arun
Introduction
When I first had coffee with Facebook’s head of public policy in India, she was using a shared workspace. Before joining Facebook, she had led the policy practice of one of India’s most powerful law firms and was on friendly terms with judges, ministers, and other influential people. It was surprising to find her in a small office in a shared workspace, with just one administrative assistant for support. In a couple of years, she moved to a suite with a beautiful view in one of Delhi’s finest luxury hotels, acquired an expanding team of seasoned lawyers and policy professionals. Within five years, the public policy team had grown to be so large that it had its own plush office in the heart of Delhi. This expansion of influence within Delhi mirrored the expansion of Meta’s (previously Facebook) influence in India. If it was difficult to be in an Indian city without relying heavily on Big Tech’s products, it was impossible to work on technology policy in Delhi without being swept into currents of change created by Big Tech.1
People across the world are grappling with a few global technology companies ’ domination of their public spheres and increasingly of other spheres of social, economic, and political engagement. In her essay on the “algorithmic colonization of Africa,” Abeba Birhane pointed out that most of Africa’s digital infrastructure is owned and controlled by major Western technology companies, and she further questioned how relevant artificial intelligence (AI) tools from the West are in other contexts.2