The Epistemology of Artificial Intelligence: A Foundational Framework

Objectif

This research programme will develop a systematic epistemological framework for understanding artificial epistemic agency. As AI systems become increasingly integrated into our knowledge generating practices—from scientific research to everyday inquiry—we urgently need to understand their epistemic status. Are these systems mere sophisticated instruments, or are they genuine knowers capable of justification, understanding, and epistemic responsibility? Can we acquire knowledge and understanding from their outputs, or is the modal closeness of catastrophic error rendering our AI-testimony based beliefs at best luckily true? The urgency of answering these questions cannot be overstated: Artificial Intelligence systems have quickly become central constitutive parts of our epistemic lives. They co-author scientific articles, they diagnose diseases with accuracy surpassing human physicians, they analyse legal evidence, educate millions, and shape public discourse. Yet we operate without principled frameworks for understanding their epistemic contributions. AI-KNOW fills this theoretical gap. It develops the first foundational framework for the epistemology of artificial intelligence, including: a metaepistemology of AI (including demarcation criteria for distinguishing genuine artificial epistemic agency from mere information processors), an individual epistemology of AI (what it takes for an artificial system to achieve knowledge and understanding and to produce genuine constative speech), a social epistemology of AI (principles for when to trust AI outputs, how to resolve human-AI disagreement, and how to structure responsible human-AI collaboration in scientific inquiry) and an applied epistemology of AI (including frameworks for the use of AI in legal proceedings, medical diagnosis, disinformation tracking, and education). In doing so, AI-KNOW delivers new tools to better understand our new epistemic collaborators and their agency as knowledge-seekers and sharers.