The promise of Artificial Intelligence in Latin America is often framed through the lens of leapfrogging. This is the idea that a region can bypass traditional stages of development by adopting cutting edge technology. However, a closer look at the current landscape reveals a more unsettling trajectory. While the Global North develops the models and sets the ethical guardrails, LatAm risks becoming a passive consumer of these tools. This is a fundamental threat to the region’s agency that results in the rise of a Passive AI Generation.
The Epistemic Divide: Users vs. Subjects
The most significant risk facing LatAm is an epistemic divide based on who understands the logic behind the screen. As AI becomes embedded in classroom assignments and credit scoring, the region is splitting into two groups. One group can critique, adapt, and build with AI. The other group is merely governed by it.
In many LatAm public school systems, infrastructure is still struggling to catch up with the pre-AI era. When advanced generative tools are introduced into these under-resourced environments without deep digital literacy, they are often treated as objective truth. A generation that grows up using AI to solve problems without understanding how to question a model’s hallucinations or its inherent cultural biases is a generation that is effectively disenfranchised. They become passive recipients of algorithmic decisions. They lose the ability to contest the data that shapes their lives.
The Research Vacuum and the Disinformation Lab
A recent study from the Technical University of Loja (UTPL) in Ecuador, highlighted by the LatAm Journalism Review, underscores the severity of this passivity. While academic research on the intersection of AI and disinformation has skyrocketed globally, production within LatAm remains scarce, isolated, and disconnected.
This research vacuum creates a dangerous paradox. LatAm is a primary laboratory for AI disinformation, as seen in the manipulated videos that plagued Argentina’s 2025 elections. Yet it lacks the local scientific infrastructure to study and defend against these attacks. When the majority of research on LatAm’s digital threats is conducted by universities in the Global North or Spain, the resulting solutions often miss the local sociopolitical nuances. Without homegrown research, LatAm’s journalists and policymakers are fighting a high tech war with borrowed and often ill-fitting tools.
The Problem of Cultural Erasure
Passivity also manifests in the data itself. Most Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on massive datasets that are overwhelmingly Anglo-centric. When a student in Mexico or Brazil uses these tools, they are interacting with a logic and a value system that may not reflect their own reality.
For the Passive AI Generation, this leads to a subtle form of cultural erosion. If the AI consistently provides answers that reflect Northern perspectives on history, social norms, or even language usage, the local context begins to fade. To remain active participants in the digital age, LatAm must move beyond consuming imported models. It must invest in Sovereign AI. This means infrastructure and datasets that reflect the region’s specific languages, indigenous cultures, and historical lived experiences.
The Economic Cost of Passivity
From an infrastructure standpoint, being a passive consumer is a massive financial drain. If LatAm only pays for software licenses and cloud credits to foreign hyperscalers, it is essentially exporting its wealth to fuel the research of others.
The move toward sovereign compute, like Brazil’s PBIA plan or Chile’s investment in local supercomputing, is an attempt to break this cycle. However, hardware is only half the battle. If the workforce is not trained to be AI-active, the region will remain a user on someone else’s platform. The economic gap will grow because the talent was never taught to own the means of digital production.
The Ethical Void: Who Teaches the Teacher?
Perhaps the most poignant evidence of this passivity is found in the classroom. Many educators in LatAm feel overwhelmed by the pace of change. Reports show that while some teachers are eager to innovate, many others are fearful. These teachers view AI as a tool for cheating rather than an engine for critical thinking.
This fear stems from a lack of systemic support. When technology is dropped into schools from the top down without meaningful training, it breeds resistance. If teachers do not feel empowered to use AI ethically and creatively, they cannot pass those skills to their students. The result is a cycle of exclusion. The most vulnerable students are the first to be left behind because the human ecosystem to support them is fractured.
Moving Toward an Active Future
To avoid the trap of a Passive AI Generation, LatAm must treat AI literacy as a fundamental civil right. This requires a three-pronged approach:
- Regional Research Alliances: As suggested by the UTPL study, universities across Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and their neighbors must form collaborative networks. We cannot rely on the Global North to solve a disinformation crisis that is uniquely Latin American.
- Infrastructure Sovereignty: Investing in local data centers and Sovereign Clouds ensures that the region’s data is used to benefit local economies.
- Human-Centric Pedagogy: Education must shift to epistemic fluency. Students must be taught to refine prompts, critique algorithmic output, and understand the ethics of data.
Conclusion
The question for Latin America is not whether AI will reshape the region. It already is. The real question is whether the people of LatAm will be the architects of that change or its subjects. Choosing a path of passivity means accepting a future where others decide how we learn, how we work, and how we are governed. Choosing an active path requires the courage to invest in our own intelligence, our own research, and our own digital borders. The future of LatAm’s agency depends on it.
