Date: 30 January 2026 (Friday)
Time: 10:00am – 11:30am
Venue: Room 4.36, 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Speakers:
Prof Mark Coeckelbergh, Philosophy, University of Vienna
Abstract:
Democracy theories assume that citizens have some form of political knowledge. But apart from widespread attention to the phenomenon of fake news and misinformation, less attention has been paid to how they are supposed to acquire that knowledge in contexts shaped by artificial intelligence (AI) and related digital technologies. Using the concept of epistemic agency, this paper argues that AI endangers democracy since it risks to diminish the epistemic agency of citizens and thereby undermine the relevant kind of political agency in democracy. It shows that next to fake news and manipulation by means of AI analysis of big data, epistemic bubbles and the defaulting of statistical knowledge endanger the exercise of epistemic agency by citizens when they form and wish to revise their political beliefs. If we want to protect the knowledge basis of our democracies, we must address these problems in education and tech policy.
