The AI Extraction Pipeline: Traditional Knowledge and Communities' Rights

by 

 Kapila Premarathne

 CyJurII Scholar

On 7 August 2026

Introduction

Should existing international legal frameworks remain unchanged when artificial intelligence (AI) fundamentally transforms the commercial significance of documented traditional knowledge? While scholars have extensively examined the relationship between AI and traditional knowledge through the lenses of ethics, Indigenous participation, digital governance, and data sovereignty, comparatively little attention has been devoted to the legal consequences of AI-enabled commercialization of historically documented traditional knowledge.

Communities across the world have developed, preserved, and transmitted valuable traditional knowledge over many generations. Much of this knowledge has been documented through ethnographic studies, scientific publications, government archives, and historical records. Although communities may have shared this knowledge with varying degrees of awareness, consent, or understanding regarding its future use, documentation frequently resulted in the material entering the public domain. Historically, however, the dispersed nature of these records made systematic identification and large-scale commercial exploitation both technically difficult and economically impractical.

Artificial intelligence fundamentally alters this reality. AI systems can rapidly aggregate, analyze, and extract commercially valuable insights from vast collections of dispersed traditional knowledge at a scale previously impossible. This technological capability exposes an important legal gap concerning the recognition, participation, and equitable benefit-sharing rights of the communities from which such knowledge originates. AI is not the beginning of extraction; rather, it represents the beginning of a new phase of extraction. This article conceptualizes this emerging phenomenon as the AI Extraction Pipeline.

The Emerging Legal Gap

Existing international legal frameworks—including the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD),1 the Nagoya Protocol,2 the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS),3 and related international instruments—provide only partial protection for traditional knowledge. These instruments were principally designed to regulate access to genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, rather than the generation of commercial value through AI-enabled analysis of knowledge that has long been publicly documented.

AI therefore presents a novel legal question. Where commercially valuable outputs are generated through AI from traditional knowledge documented decades—or even centuries—earlier, should international law recognize new obligations because AI has fundamentally transformed the commercial significance of that documentation? Alternatively, should historical publication permanently determine the legal status of traditional knowledge regardless of subsequent technological developments?

Existing international law provides no definitive answer. Copyright law protects the expression of ideas rather than knowledge itself,4 while current international frameworks provide limited guidance on whether originating communities should receive recognition or equitable benefit-sharing when their documented knowledge becomes commercially valuable through AI-enabled applications.

Double Vulnerability

Many traditional and Indigenous communities continue to experience digital exclusion resulting from language barriers, limited digital literacy, inadequate technological infrastructure, and restricted access to legal institutions. Consequently, they are particularly vulnerable to AI-enabled commercial exploitation while simultaneously being among the least able to understand, monitor, or challenge the use of their knowledge.

This creates a condition of double vulnerability. Their exclusion is therefore not merely technological but also legal, institutional, and socio-economic. As AI increasingly shapes the global knowledge economy, these communities risk becoming further marginalized despite remaining the original custodians of knowledge that generates significant commercial value.

Towards a Rights-Based Framework

Addressing this governance challenge requires legal innovation rather than the simple extension of existing intellectual property rules. Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), together with the right to development and the principles reflected in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), provides a strong normative foundation for future reform.5

First, future governance frameworks should strengthen documentation and provenance mechanisms capable of identifying originating communities and, where appropriate, recording consent arrangements. India’s Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), established following the turmeric patent controversy, demonstrates how systematic documentation can establish prior art and prevent patent misappropriation. Although the TKDL was not designed to regulate AI-enabled commercialization of documented traditional knowledge, it illustrates how provenance mechanisms may reduce future disputes.6

Secondly, international legal frameworks should provide clearer guidance regarding the circumstances in which recognition and equitable benefit-sharing obligations arise from AI-enabled commercial value generation. The well-known Hoodia case in South Africa demonstrates how the commercialization of traditional knowledge may generate disputes concerning recognition and benefit-sharing, highlighting the importance of developing appropriate governance mechanisms before comparable disputes emerge in relation to AI.7

Thirdly, future reforms should progressively recognize principles of community data sovereignty while promoting intergenerational equity. Communities that continue to preserve and develop traditional knowledge should not be excluded from future economic opportunities simply because technological advances have fundamentally altered the commercial value of knowledge documented in earlier generations.

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence fundamentally transforms the manner in which documented traditional knowledge generates commercial value, exposing a legal challenge rather than merely a technological one. Existing international legal frameworks provide no clear answer to this new stage in the lifecycle of traditional knowledge.

The relative silence of many traditional and Indigenous communities should not be interpreted as acquiescence. Rather, it reflects continuing exclusion from the legal, technological, and economic systems that increasingly determine how their knowledge is used and commercialized.

Addressing this emerging governance challenge does not require revisiting historical documentation or assigning retrospective legal responsibility. Instead, it requires carefully calibrated legal innovation capable of ensuring that AI-enabled commercial value generation remains consistent with internationally recognized principles of human rights, equity, justice, participation, and fair and equitable benefit-sharing.

Footnotes

1. Convention on Biological Diversity (adopted 5 June 1992, entered into force 29 December 1993) 1760 UNTS 79 arts 8(j), 15.

2. Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity (adopted 29 October 2010, entered into force 12 October 2014) arts 5–7.

3. Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (adopted 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) 1869 UNTS 299.

4. Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (n 3) art 9; Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Paris Act, 24 July 1971) 1161 UNTS 30 art 2.

5. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 993 UNTS 3 art 15; United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, UNGA Res 61/295 (13 September 2007) arts 11, 31, 32; Declaration on the Right to Development, UNGA Res 41/128 (4 December 1986).

6. World Intellectual Property Organization, Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) https://www.wipo.int/tk/en/tkdl/⁠ accessed 6 August 2026.

7. Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and South African San Council Benefit Sharing Agreement (2003); see also Rachel Wynberg and Doris Schroeder, Indigenous Peoples, Consent and Benefit Sharing (Springer 2009)