The Last Mile of Assimilation—Do Not Judge Our 'Universe' by Your Logic
Original Chinese title: 同化的最後一哩路—別用你們的邏輯判定我們的『宇宙』
A nation's universe is not an arbitrary collection of data. Land, ancestors, language, dreams, seasons, and responsibilities are interwoven; if AI and institutions only acknowledge quantifiable, classifiable parts, they will complete knowledge assimilation under the guise of neutrality.
Aciang Iku-Silan
University Professor / Author of 'The War of Creation'
Assimilation does not always arrive in uniform, carrying prohibitions. It may also appear as data tables, research methods, platform fields, and AI models, politely asking: Please organize your world into a format we can understand.
This is the last mile of assimilation. The earlier roads demanded that we change names, languages, and ways of living; this final stretch requires us to accept another logic to determine what counts as knowledge, what counts as evidence, and what counts as real.
You See Data, We Live in Relationships
External systems habitually decompose the world into manageable items: land is a parcel number, plants are species, songs are audio files, rituals are events, elders are interviewees. Once broken apart, data becomes easy to store, search, and exchange, but the responsibilities that originally bound them may vanish.
For many Indigenous knowledge systems, land is not background, ancestors are not historical figures, language is not a label. They exist in relationships and demand that people fulfill those relationships. If only names and images remain, stripped of who may speak, when they may speak, and what responsibilities follow speech, what is preserved is merely an empty shell.
AI Most Easily Replicates the Dominant Universe
AI relies on classification, similarity, and abundant accessible data. The mainstream world has left behind many texts, many labels, and many institutional records; therefore models more readily treat dominant logic as universal common sense. When it encounters knowledge that resists decomposition, is unsuitable for public release, or can only be understood within specific relationships, it often judges such content as insufficient data, lacking evidence, or needing supplementation.
The problem is not merely that the model does not know; it may also fail to recognize its own ignorance. It fills gaps with fluent sentences, blends different peoples into a single set of "Indigenous perspectives," and returns this stitched result to education, media, and policy systems.
Translation Cannot Become Submission
Cross-cultural communication certainly requires translation, but translation should not demand that the weaker party first abandon its own world structure. If every piece of knowledge must first be transformed into external academic classifications, administrative fields, or platform tags before it qualifies for recognition, that is not equal dialogue—it is a knowledge entry review.
True dialogue must allow certain concepts to remain untranslatable and acknowledge that silence, limitation, and refusal are also valid information. Not all knowledge needs to be uploaded; not all relationships can be made public; and incomprehensibility does not mean nonexistence.
Platforms Must Preserve Refusal and Multiple Interpretations
Cultural data platforms and AI systems must at least do four things: let communities decide whether data enters the system; preserve provenance, authorization, and context of use; allow multiple descriptions for the same thing; provide mechanisms for withdrawal, restriction, and correction.
Going further, platforms should not offer only "public" versus "not public." Some content may be open solely to community members; some require elder consent; some are usable only in particular seasons or educational contexts. If technology truly respects culture, it must learn to handle these relationships rather than demand that relationships conform to databases.
Do Not Complete the Last Mile for Us
We do not reject technology nor oppose knowledge exchange. We reject: external systems defining the shape of our universe first, then demanding we prove ourselves fit within that shape.
AI can assist in organizing corpora, linking memories, preserving images, and serving as a cross-generational learning tool. But it must accept that it is not the sole arbiter of knowledge. True coexistence means not compressing all worlds into one table, but allowing different universes to retain their own gravity, time, and boundaries.
AI use and content-safety disclosure
This article was collaboratively prepared by the author's perspective and Yuan Media AI editorial workflow, reviewed by human editors before publication; the main visual uses abstract concepts and does not refer to specific Indigenous groups or sacred symbols.