ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND INFO-COLONIAL GOVERNANCE: TRUTH, POWER, AND LAW IN THE AGE OF ALGORITHMIC NEOLIBERALISM

In this paper, I suggest calling “info-colonial governance” a novel form of power that is shaping contemporary processes of knowledge production, social regulation, and legal decision-making. The central argument is that artificial intelligence (AI), algorithms, and digital information technologies are no longer merely technical tools but have become fundamental mechanisms through which reality is perceived, knowledge is validated, and human behavior is governed.

Drawing upon Michel Foucault’s (2010) analyses of governmentality and neoliberalism, the paper argues that contemporary digital infrastructures extend neoliberal rationality into new domains of social life through algorithmic systems. The concept of info-colonial governance is developed through a synthesis of Antoinette Rouvroy’s (2013) notion of algorithmic governmentality and Nick Couldry and Ulises Mejias’s (2020) theory of digital colonialism. These approaches illuminate how large technology corporations increasingly exercise power through data, thereby influencing social conduct and constructing regimes of truth on a global scale.

The study further investigates the implications of this transformation for law and legal institutions. It argues that algorithmic systems employed in judicial and administrative contexts frequently reproduce neoliberal assumptions centered on efficiency, optimization, and economic calculation, often at the expense of justice. The paper therefore introduces the notion of “algorithmic neoliberalism” to describe the convergence of artificial intelligence, market rationality, and legal governance.

From a philosophical perspective, the paper addresses three interconnected issues. First, it examines the epistemological problem of truth, questioning how algorithmic filtering, personalization, and data-driven systems transform the conditions under which knowledge is produced and validated. Second, it explores the ontological problem of reality, investigating how digital infrastructures reshape human experience and perceptions of the world. Third, it analyzes the political and juridical problem of power, focusing on the capacity of law either to reinforce contemporary forms of digital domination or to function as an instrument of resistance and digital decolonization.

The paper concludes that law should not be understood solely as a mechanism of control but also as a strategic site of resistance and digital decolonization. In this sense, the future of legal and political thought depends on developing new normative frameworks capable of confronting the challenges posed by info-colonial governance in the age of artificial intelligence.