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The EU AI Act is establishing global AI governance standards that developing nations may be structurally compelled to adopt, despite these frameworks embedding Western values around individual rights and privacy that may conflict with communitarian philosophies like Ubuntu. Compliance costs (€52,000 annually per high-risk model) and infrastructure gaps create barriers for Global South countries, while alternative approaches from India, Singapore, and the African Union demonstrate that multiple regulatory paradigms are possible. The article argues this dynamic mirrors historical patterns of regulatory imperialism, where wealthy nations' standards become de facto global requirements through market power rather than genuine consensus, raising fundamental questions about technological sovereignty and whether developing nations can exercise meaningful agency in shaping AI governance.

Western AI Rules for Everyone: The Hidden Cost to Developing Nations

Exploring the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, posthuman ethics, society and culture.