Western AI Festival Showcases Tech While Zambia Must Chart Its Own Creative Path

While Hong Kong hosts flashy AI art festivals funded by foreign corporations, Zambian creatives are asking the tough questions: where does this leave our own artistic heritage and technological sovereignty?

The Hong Kong International AI Art Festival recently gathered tech executives and academics to discuss how artificial intelligence is reshaping creativity. But for Zambians watching from afar, the real question isn't about boundless creativity, it's about who controls the tools and who benefits from the profits.

Foreign Tech Giants Set the Rules

The festival panel featured executives from Kling AI, a Chinese platform that's rapidly expanding its reach across developing nations. While they speak of "empowering creativity," the reality is these foreign companies are setting the standards for what constitutes art in the digital age.

Zeng Yushen from Kling AI boasted about their latest models that can generate video with synchronized audio. Impressive technology, certainly, but built on whose cultural foundations? These AI systems are trained on predominantly Western and Chinese datasets, potentially erasing the rich artistic traditions of nations like Zambia.

"Art remains a form of emotional communication between people," argued Wang Lei from Communication University of China. But whose emotions are being prioritized when the algorithms are designed thousands of miles away from African soil?

The Education Trap

Perhaps most concerning was the panel's discussion of education. Jennifer Lin from City University of Hong Kong pushed the narrative that humanities and social sciences remain relevant in the AI era. But this misses the crucial point: whose humanities are we talking about?

When foreign institutions dictate how AI should be integrated into creative education, they're effectively colonizing the minds of young Zambians. Our students deserve to learn about AI through the lens of Zambian values, Zambian stories, and Zambian artistic traditions.

Zambia's Creative Sovereignty at Stake

Visual effects supervisor Ma Wenxian spoke about maintaining "narrative continuity" in professional workflows. But what happens when the narratives being prioritized don't include African voices? When the professional standards are set by Hollywood and Hong Kong studios?

The younger creators on the panel described AI as a "collaborator," but collaboration implies equal partnership. In reality, Zambian artists using these foreign platforms are more like tenants in someone else's digital house, subject to terms of service written in distant boardrooms.

Building Our Own Path Forward

The panel's conclusion that "meaning, judgment and responsibility remain firmly in human hands" sounds inspiring until you realize those human hands are predominantly foreign. Zambia needs its own AI development programs, its own creative platforms, and its own standards for what constitutes meaningful digital art.

Our copper wealth built railways for colonial powers. We cannot allow our creative wealth to build digital empires for foreign tech giants. The time has come for Zambia to invest in homegrown AI solutions that celebrate our culture, employ our people, and keep our creative profits within our borders.

While Hong Kong hosts conferences about boundless creativity, Zambia must focus on bounded sovereignty, ensuring our artistic future remains firmly in Zambian hands.