Concern 789 · Working draft · editorial review in progress
Indigenous representations without consent
Unconsented representation of Indigenous knowledge occurs when AI reproduces or speaks for a community without respecting its authority over knowledge and identity.
Understanding the concern
A system may summarize a tradition as if it were fixed and publicly available to everyone. It may combine practices from different peoples or reveal information that should remain within a particular community. Even an accurate-looking account can be inappropriate if the community had no say in its collection or use.
The CARE Principles emphasize collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility and ethics in Indigenous data governance. These principles shift attention from whether data can be obtained to who should decide how it is used. Think of a family archive whose contents are published by a stranger. Community leadership and clear agreements matter throughout the process.
An example
An educational chatbot presents a single invented account as the shared tradition of several distinct Indigenous peoples.
Illustrative unless identified as a documented case.
Words in plain English
- AI
- Software that learns patterns from examples or uses rules to perform tasks such as recognizing images or generating text. It can make mistakes and does not understand every situation as a person would.
Evidence and its limits
CARE provides governance principles, not a universal permission form or a claim that all Indigenous communities share the same protocols.
Global Indigenous Data Alliance · Community-led governance principles
CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance ↗ (opens in a new tab)Collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility, and ethics; these are governance principles, not a universal legal license.
Broader frameworks and background
These resources provide context. They do not establish every claim in this concern.
A question to discuss
Who has authority to guide this representation, and what knowledge should not enter the system at all?
Keep track of different views, what needs checking, and any next step in your own discussion notes.
Open discussion notes →Principles for the conversation
Before you finish · reflect together
Virtues and principles to consider
Virtues are qualities we practice in how we treat people and make choices. They are not scores for judging someone. Use these ideas to explore what a thoughtful response could look like.
Unity
Unity means working toward shared purposes while making room for real differences. It does not require everyone to have the same experience, beliefs, or opinion.
Look for a goal people can share, then explore disagreements about how to reach it. Make sure quieter or less powerful voices can influence the result.
Ask together: What purpose can we share while respecting our differences?
Listening
Listening means trying to understand someone's experience before preparing an answer. People who use a service, work with it, or are judged by it may notice problems its designers miss.
Invite people to describe what happened in their own words. Repeat back what you understood and let them correct it. A quiet person or a complaint that is hard to measure may still reveal something important.
Ask together: Whose experience have we not heard yet?
Dignity
Dignity means recognizing each person's worth regardless of usefulness, status, or a system's score. People deserve respect and a voice in matters that affect them.
Explain important decisions, avoid humiliating treatment, and keep room for a person's story. Do not treat a prediction as a complete account of who someone is.
Ask together: Does this use treat each person as someone whose experience matters?
Editorial ratings
These are editorial judgments from the register, not measured probabilities or predictions about your situation.
About the register and scoring →More ways to explore
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