Automated Epistemic Translation: Large Language Models, Algorithmic Infrastructure, and the Governance of the Sayable in Latin America
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.16921/chasqui.v1i162.5343Keywords:
Automated epistemic tra nslation, algorithmic coloniality, Large Language Models, propaganda, coloniality of knowledge, Latin AmericaAbstract
Large Language Models configure a qualitatively new form of communicational governance. This article argues that algorithmic coloniality constitutes a mutation —rather than a mere extension— of classical coloniality: the transition from institutional mediation to the infrastructural automation of epistemic governance. Through an epistemic friction audit on Ecuadorian realities with Latin American resonance (approached via Critical Discourse Analysis), four patterns of Automated Epistemic Translation (AET) emerge: assimilation, ontological negation, hierarchization, and folklorization. The operation is articulated across three levels: lexical availability of critical vocabulary, citation regime that enunciates without inhabiting, and hegemonic operative grammar that surfaces at the propositional moment. The answer does not lie; it translates, absorbing the very framework it claims to challenge.
References
Acosta, A. (2013). El Buen Vivir: Sumak Kawsay, una oportunidad para imaginar otros mundos. Icaria.
Anthropic. (2026). Claude [Large language model]. https://claude.ai
Bender, E. M., Gebru, T., McMillan-Major, A. y Shmitchell, S. (2021). On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? Proceedings of FAccT '21, 610-623. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445922
Benjamin, R. (2019). Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the New Jim Code. Polity Press.
Birhane, A. (2020). Algorithmic colonization of Africa. SCRIPTed: A Journal of Law, Technology and Society, 17(2), 389-409. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2966/scrip.170220.389
Castells, M. (2009). Comunicación y poder. Alianza Editorial.
Couldry, N. y Mejías, U. (2019). The costs of connection: How data is colonizing human life and appropriating it for capitalism. Stanford University Press.
De Sousa Santos, B. (2010). Descolonizar el saber, reinventar el poder. Trilce.
Escobar, A. (2007). La invención del Tercer Mundo: construcción y deconstrucción del desarrollo. Norma.
Escobar, A. (2018). Autonomía y diseño: la realización de lo comunal. Editorial Universidad del Cauca.
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Polity Press.
Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. Routledge.
Google. (2026). Gemini [Large language model]. https://gemini.google.com
Gudynas, E. (2011). Buen Vivir: germinando alternativas al desarrollo. América Latina en Movimiento, 462, 1-20.
Habermas, J. (1981). Teoría de la acción comunicativa. Taurus.
Haraway, D. (1995). Conocimientos situados: la cuestión científica en el feminismo y el privilegio de la perspectiva parcial. En Ciencia, cyborgs y mujeres: la reinvención de la naturaleza (pp. 313-346). Cátedra.
Howard, P. N. y Woolley, S. C. (2018). Computational propaganda: Political parties, politicians, and political manipulation on social media. Oxford University Press.
Hui, Y. (2016). The question concerning technology in China: An essay in cosmotechnics. Urbanomic.
Lander, E. (Ed.). (2000). La colonialidad del saber: Eurocentrismo y ciencias sociales. CLACSO.
Lasswell, H. (1927). Propaganda technique in the World War. Peter Smith.
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007). Sobre la colonialidad del ser: contribuciones al desarrollo de un concepto. En S. Castro-Gómez y R. Grosfoguel (Eds.), El giro decolonial (pp. 127-167). Siglo del Hombre Editores.
Martín-Barbero, J. (1987). De los medios a las mediaciones: comunicación, cultura y hegemonía. Gustavo Gili.
Mattelart, A. (2009). Un mundo vigilado. Paidós.
Mignolo, W. (2003). Historias locales / diseños globales: colonialidad, conocimientos subalternos y pensamiento fronterizo. Akal.
Mills, C. W. (1956). The power elite. Oxford University Press.
Mohamed, S., Png, M.-T. e Isaac, W. (2020). Decolonial AI: Decolonial theory as sociotechnical foresight in artificial intelligence. Philosophy & Technology, 33, 659-684. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-020-00405-8
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. NYU Press.
OpenAI. (2026). ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com
Pasquinelli, M. (2023). The eye of the master: A social history of artificial intelligence. Verso.
Quijano, A. (2000). Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y América Latina. En E. Lander (Ed.), La colonialidad del saber (pp. 201-246). CLACSO.
Ricaurte, P. (2019). Data epistemologies, the coloniality of power, and resistance. Television & New Media, 20(4), 350-365. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419831640
Spivak, G. C. (2000). The politics of translation. En L. Venuti (Ed.), The translation studies reader (pp. 397-416). Routledge.
Torrico Villanueva, E. R. (2022). Comunicación (re)humanizadora: Ruta decolonial. CIESPAL. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16921/ciespal.15
Walsh, C. (2007). Interculturalidad y colonialidad del poder: un pensamiento y posicionamiento «otro» desde la diferencia colonial. En S. Castro-Gómez y R. Grosfoguel (Eds.), El giro decolonial (pp. 47-62). Siglo del Hombre Editores.
Wittgenstein, L. (2008). Investigaciones filosóficas. Crítica. (Obra original publicada en 1953).
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Diego Rivas

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs License (CC BY-ND) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online.

