At a time when digital technologies are reshaping our relationship with the past, artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a novel tool for revisiting and enriching historical memories that are often biased or incomplete. In 2025, faced with the challenges of decolonizing knowledge and narratives, artists and researchers are boldly exploring how this technology can deconstruct dominant representations stemming from colonial legacies. Through the creation of AI-generated images and narratives, whether invisible to traditional archives or obscured by official narratives, plural and diverse voices are emerging. Far from being neutral, this approach also questions the ethics of data and algorithms, inviting collective reflection on the role of AI in the quest for Just Remembrance and Liberated Narratives. Between challenges and potential, artificial intelligence opens a new field for the recognition of often erased Digital Roots, thus providing a platform for symbolic resistance and the revival of Free Memories.
New perspectives offered by artificial intelligence to decolonize historical memories
Faced with the absence or marginalization of certain narratives in archives, AI now makes it possible to fill these gaps with disruptive creativity. The striking example of Brazilian visual artist Mayara Ferrão illustrates this dynamic driven by the “Album of Unforgetting” project: through images generated by artificial intelligence, she recreates love scenes between Black or Indigenous women, often excluded from classic colonial narratives. This artistic work relies on precise algorithm control to avoid pre-existing racist biases in databases. By successfully programming an AI that incorporates greater diversity and minority historicity, the artist creates authentic representations that contribute to writing an alternative historical narrative, both emotional and political.
The Impact of Biased Algorithms and the Need for Ethical AI
Artificial intelligence is not limited to the simple generation of images or texts. Behind each piece of content lies a complex set of data and algorithmic processing. However, in many cases, these data reflect cultural and historical biases inherited from colonialism. The challenge of DecolonIA is therefore to rethink and reformulate AI models, incorporating long-marginalized voices and perspectives. This requires political and scientific will to develop tools like IAthentik and MemoIA, capable of deconstructing dominant narratives and supporting EpowerHistory. Digital memories must be reinvented to enable the faithful restitution of often-forgotten experiences, which is at the heart of the projects led by Neocogit and other committed actors.
Artificial intelligence at the service of memory initiatives and historical justice
AI technologies are increasingly being integrated into civic and cultural projects that aim to reconstruct the complexity of colonial and post-colonial histories. By generating images, sound archives, or reconstructed testimonies, AI invites a collective reappropriation of roots. This process contributes to strengthening the notion of Plural Voices, which goes beyond monopolistic narratives and opens up space for symbolic reconciliation. The use of these tools not only promotes the visibility of long-ignored communities, but also fuels a dialogue around FreeMemory in academic spheres and on social media.
Geopolitical and Cultural Issues Surrounding Digital Decolonization
The increased adoption of artificial intelligence in the writing of history cannot be dissociated from current geopolitical issues. Indeed, the construction of databases and the selection of archives are themselves a terrain where global power relations are exerted. In this context, questions of digital sovereignty and narrative control are acute. Initiatives such as RacinesNumériques seek to protect the intangible heritage of indigenous and colonized peoples from appropriation or falsification. Thus, AI can become a vector of Resistance and EmpowerHistory, provided that participatory policies are put in place that guarantee the plurality of sources and points of view.
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