The Invisibility Hypothesis: Promises of AGI and the Future of the Global South

2026-03-02

AI Summary

This study examines how Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) may exacerbate global inequalities, placing populations in the Global South at risk of marginalization—or even “invisibility”—in a highly automated world. Introducing the novel “invisibility hypothesis,” the research situates AGI’s societal impacts within global power structures and geopolitical dynamics, employing an interdisciplinary framework that integrates scholarship on AI’s social implications, global development theory, and empirical observation to model multiple plausible trajectories of AGI deployment. Findings indicate that individual agency will increasingly hinge on access to infrastructure and institutional inclusivity rather than cognitive skills or intelligence per se. The analysis further identifies critical windows for policy intervention in Latin America, Africa, and South Asia to avert functional marginalization and reshape the global distribution of knowledge and services.

Technology Category

• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Artificial General Intelligence
• Humans and AI: AI for Accessibility
• Multiagent Systems: Agent/AI Theories and Architectures

Application Category

• Social Networks and Social Media: Generative AI / large language models and their impact on social systems
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Economic ramifications for generative AI infrastructure and applications
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

Discussions surrounding Artificial General Intelligence have largely focused on technical feasibility, timelines, and existential risk, often treating its social impact as being the same across different populations. Less attention has been paid to how advanced AI systems may interact with existing global inequalities. This paper examines the implications of AGI for people in the Global South, arguing that the availability of highly autonomous, general-purpose cognitive systems does not guarantee equitable outcomes. We establish that, as scientific discovery, economic coordination, and governance become increasingly automated, the relevance of human individuals may become conditional on access to infrastructure, institutional inclusion, and geopolitical circumstances rather than skills or intelligence. Under this setting, the Global South faces different pathways: in the best case, geographic location is no longer relevant as AGI fully democratizes access to knowledge and essential services for everyone in the globe; in the worst case, existing structural constraints are severely amplified, rendering already marginalized populations not merely economically invisible, but functionally irrelevant to global systems. We ground this analysis in empirical signals from contemporary AI deployment and extend to potential trajectories, highlighting both risk and opportunity pathways for Latin America, Africa, and South Asia.

Problem

• Artificial General Intelligence
• Global South
• global inequality
• structural exclusion
• AI governance

Innovation

• Artificial General Intelligence
• Global South
• Invisibility Hypothesis
• Structural Inequality
• AI Governance