Artificial Intelligence, Art and Indigeneity explores the cultural and ethical implications of generative AI through the lens of Indigenous visual culture in Latin America. Responding to the rise of tools like DALL·E and Midjourney, this groundbreaking volume documents the AIAI project (2023–), which invited a group of Indigenous artists and writers from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Peru to critically engage with image generation technologies. Through collaborative experimentation with a range of both commercial and bespoke tools, contributors reflect on the promises and pitfalls of AI—from its potential for 'dreaming', for imagining Indigenous futures, to the frustration of its ability to 'hallucinate', to distort and misrepresent Indigenous cultures.
Bringing together artists, writers, and scholars, the book challenges dominant narratives around AI and representation, using a decolonial framework rooted in Indigenous epistemologies. Structured in three parts – context and theory, creative reflections, and generative critique – it foregrounds multivocal and multilingual perspectives, resisting homogenisation and reframing participatory research. This is the first book-length study of generative AI's impact on Indigenous visual culture in Latin America, making a timely and vital contribution to global debates on AI, art, and cultural sovereignty.
The chapters by the Indigenous artists and writers in the central section of this multilingual book are published in their original Spanish or Portuguese as well as in English translation. The book's enhanced open access edition features Spanish- and Portuguese-language versions of the full text along with additional multimedia resources including video interviews with a number of the artists and a curated selection of images and animations.