Date: April 28, 2026 (Tuesday)
Time: 3:15pm – 6:15pm
Venue: Rm 4.36, 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Co-Hosted by: AI & Humanity Lab@HKU, HKU IDS/IDEAS, Law & Technology Centre, HKU
Speakers:
Prof Gilad Abiri, Peking University
Prof Nicole Wu, HKU
Prof Boris Babic, HKU
Prof Brian Wong, HKU
Prof Weiwei Shen, China University of Political Science and Law
Prof Jingnan Zeng, City University of Hong Kong
Prof Gilad Abiri, Peking University
Title: Epistemic Subordination
Abstract: Generative AI does not merely produce biased outputs. It encodes the majority’s way of knowing as the default infrastructure of knowledge itself. We call this epistemic subordination. The training process compresses the full breadth of human expression into a single probabilistic model whose statistical baseline reflects the languages, assumptions, and cultural frameworks of the dominant culture. Minority epistemologies are not excluded but absorbed — present in the training data, yet structurally subordinated in the output. The result is not a collection of discrete biases that can be audited and corrected. It is an epistemic condition embedded in the architecture from which all outputs emerge. This unified harm cuts across three legal domains — anti-discrimination law, cultural and linguistic rights, and democratic viewpoint pluralism — and each fails to address it for the same structural reason: existing law regulates downstream, at the level of decisions and applications. The remedy must match the site of harm. If epistemic subordination is produced at the level of model training, then law must learn to govern at that level.
Prof Nicole Wu, HKU
Title: The Truth We Prompt: How User Partisanship Shapes AI interactions
Abstract: The rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is not only transforming societies but also redefining the very foundations of international relations. Around the world, governments are racing to secure technological leadership, framing AI as both an economic opportunity and a strategic imperative. China has declared its ambition to become an AI superpower by 2030, while the United States is equally determined to safeguard its global dominance. These competing trajectories have intensified the AI race, driving technological decoupling and placing U.S.–China relations at the heart of the struggle for global order. This talk will explore the complex interplay between AI and geopolitics. It will examine how the AI race is accelerating strategic rivalry, fuelling pressures for decoupling, and creating new fault lines in global governance. Beyond competition, it will consider how AI may reshape the balance of power, challenge existing international institutions, and ultimately reconfigure the future world order. By analyzing the opportunities and risks embedded in this technological revolution, the talk highlights why AI has become one of the defining forces shaping our collective future.
Prof Boris Babic & Prof Brian Wong, HKU
Title: On the Geopolitics of Artificial Intelligence
Abstract: Artificial intelligence is no longer merely a technical tool — it is rapidly reshaping global power, competition, and cooperation. Boris Babic and Brian Wong’s forthcoming ‘Geopolitics of Artificial Intelligence’ (CUP, 2026) explores how AI is transforming relations between states, corporations and societies, creating significant economic and governance opportunities while also generating new risks, from intensifying geopolitical rivalries to the erosion of global cooperation and threats to sovereignty and democratic self-determination. The book argues that existing political and regulatory frameworks are ill-equipped to address these challenges, as AI risks and geopolitical tensions increasingly reinforce one another — often driven by powerful non-state actors like technology firms. It proposes a new ethical and governance framework grounded in shared responsibility, structural justice and global equality, offering a vision for managing AI’s benefits and harms more fairly in an unequal world.
Prof Weiwei Shen, China University of Political Science and Law,
Title: Beyond “Hallucination”: A Framework for Allocating Liability in Generative AI
Abstract: Generative AI systems‘ persuasive fluency is accompanied by a structural tendency to produce statements that appear coherent and authoritative while being factually unreliable—so-called “AI hallucinations.” Emerging judicial responses in China illustrate the doctrinal strain. A 2025 decision by the Hangzhou Internet Court—concerning inaccurate information produced by a generative AI service—rejected theories of AI legal personhood and product liability, and instead analysed the provider’s fault through a structured inquiry into duties of care. While case-specific, the judgment foregrounds broader questions: how should liability categories be chosen, how should duties be specified, how should causation be approached, and how can tort law remain normatively stable amid fast-moving technological change?
This paper argues that the significance of such cases lies less in whether a particular output is “wrong” than in the underlying logic of responsibility allocation for probabilistic, systemic risks. It identifies a central tension: hallucination risk is multi-causal and context-dependent, whereas tort adjudication seeks precision and predictability. To resolve this mismatch, the paper proposes a responsibility-oriented typology based on two variables—technical control capacity (whether risk can be meaningfully reduced through reasonably costed, verifiable measures) and normative expectations (the level of error intolerance in particular contexts). Mapping hallucination types onto these axes enables differentiated liability pathways and a dynamic model of responsibility allocation, balancing technological uncertainty with legal stability and offering an evolvable framework for future legislation and adjudication.
Prof Jingnan Zeng, City University of Hong Kong
Title: AI, Geopolitics, and the Future World Order
Abstract: The rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is not only transforming societies but also redefining the very foundations of international relations. Around the world, governments are racing to secure technological leadership, framing AI as both an economic opportunity and a strategic imperative. China has declared its ambition to become an AI superpower by 2030, while the United States is equally determined to safeguard its global dominance. These competing trajectories have intensified the AI race, driving technological decoupling and placing U.S.–China relations at the heart of the struggle for global order. This talk will explore the complex interplay between AI and geopolitics. It will examine how the AI race is accelerating strategic rivalry, fuelling pressures for decoupling, and creating new fault lines in global governance. Beyond competition, it will consider how AI may reshape the balance of power, challenge existing international institutions, and ultimately reconfigure the future world order. By analyzing the opportunities and risks embedded in this technological revolution, the talk highlights why AI has become one of the defining forces shaping our collective future.
