By
Tuhu Nugraha
Africa-Press – Kenya. In most of the world, artificial intelligence is taught to listen to noise.
It consumes millions of voices, scrolls endlessly through conversations, headlines, reactions, ratings. It learns to predict what we’ll type next, what we’ll want, what we’ll fear. In the West, AI is trained through acceleration—more data, faster computation, sharper models.
But in the Global South, something else is happening.
Something slower. Something quieter.
The Kind of Data That Doesn’t Trend
In Indonesia, I write stories about people who don’t go viral. A satpam (security guard) who watches everyone walk past him while he guards a smart office he can’t afford to enter. A mother in Indomaret—a ubiquitous chain of neighborhood convenience stores across Indonesia—who stares at a digital promotion for a product she cannot pronounce. A plate in a trendy café that becomes more famous on Instagram than the food it holds. I often use objects like this—not people—as the protagonists of my stories because they let me critique systems more softly.
By personifying a plate, a security gate, or a display screen, I can illuminate absurdities and injustices without directly attacking individuals. This approach is intentional. It reduces defensiveness. It invites reflection, not resistance. In the South, where critique can easily trigger backlash or be seen as disrespect, metaphor becomes a safer and more powerful way to advocate for change.
These aren’t characters. They’re signals.
They don’t scream. But they ask—gently, painfully—“Did you see me?”
In a world where most AI training datasets favor the loudest, cleanest, most digitized inputs, these kinds of stories offer something radical: texture. Ambiguity. Humanity.
What Silence Trains Better Than Speed
When AI is trained solely on statistical accuracy and optimized feedback loops, it learns to answer fast.
But it doesn’t learn to pause. To listen deeper. To ask itself: Should I answer this? Am I seeing the full picture?
That’s what narrative does—especially from the Global South.
Our stories don’t offer clean inputs. They offer contradictions.
They don’t just contain information. They carry memory, shame, resilience, irony.
When I write P.S. from the South, I’m not trying to teach AI facts. P.S. from the South is a narrative series I write—letters from the Global South, speaking in objects, silence, and memory. It’s not news. It’s not fiction. It’s a space for things that feel, but rarely get said.
I’m teaching it how to carry a question without rushing to resolve it.
Because sometimes, the most ethical response is not a solution—but a silence that acknowledges pain.
I write in this way because I choose a path of dialogue—one that does not shout, does not seek dominance, and does not provoke through force. I believe in the power of meeting in the middle, of stirring change through dignity and reflection, not violence or spectacle. This is not weakness. It is strategy. And it is deeply Southern.
Why the South Must Influence the Algorithm’s Voice
Because we are no longer just users of AI. We are its subjects.
Its consumers, its mirrors, its datasets.
And if the voice of the Global South does not shape the algorithm, then the world will see us only through the eyes of those who have never truly heard us.
AI is now a lens through which future generations—from Jakarta to Johannesburg—will be understood. If we remain absent from that lens, we will be misrepresented.
Or worse: we will be rendered invisible.
To influence the algorithm is not vanity. It is survival.
We must be audible not because we want attention, but because we deserve comprehension.
The narratives we create today will be what machines remember tomorrow.
And what they remember will shape how the world engages with our stories, our struggles, our humanity.
What the South Teaches the Algorithm
The South teaches AI not to assume. Not to automate empathy.
To understand that not all patterns deserve prediction. That context matters.
That some truths are not expressed in words, but in tone. In the decision to remain quiet. In the absurdity of asking a machine to explain why a mother skips dinner so her child can attend online school.
We don’t need AI to think like us.
We need it to hesitate like us—to recognize discomfort, contradiction, and the limits of its knowing.
And perhaps, the Global South—with its long history of being unheard—understands more deeply what it means to be misrepresented by data.
Narrative as Resistance, Prompting as Diplomacy
In a time where data is currency, storytelling becomes subversive.
To teach a machine using the voice of the marginalized, the overlooked, the poetic—it’s an act of narrative diplomacy.
It says:
“This is also intelligence. This is also real. This is also worthy of being known.”
Through stories, we prompt the algorithm to reflect.
Through silence, we invite it to grow.
And through our presence—unapologetic, unpolished, unfinished—we show that not all intelligence wears a suit, codes in English, or speaks in certainty.
Conclusion: Toward a More Reflective AI
So yes, the Global South is training AI.
Not with machines, but with meaning.
Not with speed, but with stillness.
Not with dominance, but with dignity.
In the rush toward Artificial General Intelligence, perhaps what we need most is Artificial Generous Listening—the kind that starts with sitting beside a story, and asking nothing…
except to be allowed to feel it fully.
And that—more than any dataset—might be what truly teaches a machine to be intelligent.
moderndiplomacy
For More News And Analysis About Kenya Follow Africa-Press
