The Digital Spirit in the Loom The Crisis of Traditional Knowledge in the Realm of Generative AI and Cultural theft DEBANSI JOSHI(1)

The Digital Spirit in the Loom: The Crisis of Traditional Knowledge in the Realm of Generative AI and the Cultural Theft

Abstract:

As nations across the world contend Digital Sovereignty in order to safeguard the national data and infrastructure from all sectors, a serious issue has emerged at the intersection of Human Rights and Global Equity regarding the protection of cultural heritage against Generative AI. The main objective of the paper is to investigates the occurrent of "Digital Biopiracy," where the AI models which are trained on vast datasets of digitized Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCEs) harvest artisanal heritage, such as India’s GI-tagged Sambalpuri handlooms, without consent or compensation to the owners of knowledge.

The study highlights a profound problem about the current Intellectual Property (IP) regime's human-centric focus allows GenAI to scrape collective heritage and generate synthetic heritage that outcompetes authentic products, leading to market dilution and the economic dispossession of unorganized artisanal communities. By analysing recent legal shifts and emerging cases the research evaluates the effectiveness of current frameworks in ensuring Access to Knowledge without compromising cultural rights.

A doctrinal and comparative methodology, was adopted for this paper. Also, the paper identifies a significant research gap in the regulation of algorithmic bias against GI products on global e-commerce platforms. The paper concludes with the suggestion of the establishing a uniformed structured to ensure that the benefits of technological advancement are equitably shared with the holders of the original knowledge, to align the digital progress with the principles of global equity and human dignity.

Keywords: Digital Sovereignty, Generative AI, Traditional Knowledge (TK), Geographical Indications (GI), Global Equity, Algorithmic Biopiracy