From Dum Diversas to Digital Dominance: Preventing AI Driven Technocolonialism Through Historical Pattern Recognition
Christopher Cleverly
Abstract
This paper traces the evolution of colonial exploitation from the 15th-century papal doctrine of Dum Diversas to contemporary technocolonialism mediated by artificial intelligence systems. The analysis integrates two complementary frameworks: the doctrinal triad of ideological justification, legal fiction, and economic extraction identified in post-slavery colonial mechanisms, and the foundational papal bulls that established sovereignty override as the core principle of colonial domination. By examining how corporate entities - from colonial trading companies to modern tech corporations - have pioneered exploitative mechanisms including eugenics-driven sterilisation of “surplus humanity”, this paper develops an early warning system for preventing potentially putative digital colonialism such as predictive policing and algorithmic hires. The framework identifies governance vulnerabilities such as corporate concentration, algorithmic consent mechanisms, and cognitive extraction, while proposing institutional safeguards to preserve human agency and democratic oversight in AI-governed societies.
