Cultural Survival in the Age of AI: Why Estonia Must Lead with Identity

Reading UNESCO’s AI and Culture research made me pause and think about what artificial intelligence truly means for small nations like Estonia.
For a country with just over a million speakers of its language, the integration of culture into AI governance is not optional — it’s existential.

Artificial intelligence systems are overwhelmingly trained on data from dominant languages and cultures. This creates a quiet but powerful bias that risks erasing smaller linguistic and creative ecosystems from the global narrative. If Estonian data, language, or artistic expression are not represented in these systems, we risk becoming invisible — not through conquest, but through code.

Estonia must therefore take an active stance in ensuring that AI development protects and promotes our cultural heritage, language, and creative voice. This means:

• Prioritizing AI models that understand and generate Estonian language and context.

• Safeguarding digital archives of national art, music, and heritage.

• Supporting local creative industries to adapt AI ethically and effectively.

By embedding culture in its national AI strategy, Estonia can demonstrate how a small country can act as a global leader in cultural resilience — showing that technological progress and the preservation of identity can go hand in hand.

If centuries of foreign rule — by Russians, Danes, and Germans — could not erase the Estonian language or spirit, we must not allow ungoverned artificial intelligence to do so in a matter of decades. Estonia’s survival has always depended on protecting its voice — first through song, then through digital innovation. Today, that same vigilance must extend to AI.

At EART — Estonian American Art Diplomacy — we believe that culture and technology are not opposites but collaborators. Our mission is to build creative bridges between Estonia and the United States through art, dialogue, and education. We see AI as both a tool and a test: a tool for amplifying creativity, and a test of whether humanity can innovate without losing its soul.

Estonia has already shown the world how governance can be digital. Now, it can show how digital can be deeply human — rooted in language, memory, and art.
And perhaps that is the greatest contribution a small country can make to a rapidly changing world.