Viewed as a threat to academic integrity, several questions have arisen about the dark side of AI. While AI offers several opportunities for teaching and learning, questions have also arisen regarding its impact on the future of education. This paper offers a critical perspective on the dark side of AI in education by drawing on critical social theory. It examines how AI can deepen the processes of educational inequality, power relations, and cultural identity. The findings illustrate that differential levels of economic development, digital infrastructure, cultural norms, and technological capacity significantly influence the integration and impact of AI across global education systems. To counter these risks, this paper calls for AI developers to adopt an inclusive design from the start of the application to ensure that these tools are accessible, adaptable, and affordable to the economies of the Global South. The paper further highlights the urgency of incorporating African voices, values, ethics, and worldviews into global AI governance conversations. Africa and other developing countries must not merely be sites of AI deployment but key actors in shaping the educational futures these technologies enable. Their expertise is essential to confronting colonial legacies in technological innovation and ensuring that AI advances democratic empowerment rather than digital dependency.