AI as a Colleague? Towards a Social Epistemology of AI

The past few years have witnessed tremendous progress in the development of AI. DNNs and other AI tools have increasingly demonstrated their ability to perform epistemic tasks, such as recognizing patterns in data, diagnosing diseases, or exploring solution spaces to problems. The epistemic power of some AI tools suggests that they are not just epistemic instruments but rather becoming epistemic agents of their own. If this is true, new perspectives on AI emerge: The use of AI can be studied through the lens of social epistemology, a thriving branch of epistemology that emphasizes the social nature of acquiring and transmitting knowledge. But is it really appropriate to analyze AI using concepts and ideas from social epistemology? Can AI systems be experts or epistemic authorities? Is epistemic trust towards AI models justified? Can social epistemology help to deal with difficult situations, e.g., when AI and human judgment disagree? Which kinds of collaborations between humans and AI tools are most promising for improving medical diagnoses? Might it be sensible to assign group beliefs to coupled systems involving humans and AI tools? And what consequences does the social epistemology perspective have for the explainability of AI?

This workshop aims to bring together social epistemology and the philosophy of AI to address such questions. Ultimately, we hope to advance our understanding of AI and its applications by utilizing the tools of social epistemology. A special focus will be laid on the example of medicine and the use of AI tools in this domain.

Program:

March 26th, 2026