  This paper explores the important role of critical science, and in particular
of post-colonial and decolonial theories, in understanding and shaping the
ongoing advances in artificial intelligence. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is
viewed as amongst the technological advances that will reshape modern societies
and their relations. Whilst the design and deployment of systems that
continually adapt holds the promise of far-reaching positive change, they
simultaneously pose significant risks, especially to already vulnerable
peoples. Values and power are central to this discussion. Decolonial theories
use historical hindsight to explain patterns of power that shape our
intellectual, political, economic, and social world. By embedding a decolonial
critical approach within its technical practice, AI communities can develop
foresight and tactics that can better align research and technology development
with established ethical principles, centring vulnerable peoples who continue
to bear the brunt of negative impacts of innovation and scientific progress. We
highlight problematic applications that are instances of coloniality, and using
a decolonial lens, submit three tactics that can form a decolonial field of
artificial intelligence: creating a critical technical practice of AI, seeking
reverse tutelage and reverse pedagogies, and the renewal of affective and
political communities. The years ahead will usher in a wave of new scientific
breakthroughs and technologies driven by AI research, making it incumbent upon
AI communities to strengthen the social contract through ethical foresight and
the multiplicity of intellectual perspectives available to us; ultimately
supporting future technologies that enable greater well-being, with the goal of
beneficence and justice for all.
