Artificial Intelligence is in the process of transforming our society. But it also has profound implications for our methods of knowledge production and consumption. The products of recent AI machines like ChatGPT are linguistically impressive and convincing — but they are also full of factual errors which their creators euphemistically (and misleadingly) call ‘hallucinations’. Given the extent to which we are starting to rely on AI, the question arises: how can we trust any of its outputs? How do we know what to believe? Is this is technical problem or a social and epistemological one? Technology is also beginning to change our conception of knowledge itself. If someone asks you whether you know a friend’s phone number, you may say yes and reach for your phone. Do you really know it in this situation? And if so, what does this say about the concept of knowledge?
These and other questions will be introduced in a public discussion, the first public event of the Knowledge in Crisis Cluster of Excellence (https://philosophy.ceu.edu/knowledge-crisis-project).
The discussion will be moderated by Professor Tim Crane, Director of Research for the Knowledge in Crisis Project, and the author of the leading textbook on the philosophy of mind and AI, The Mechanical Mind (first edition 1995, third edition 2014).
The discussion will be followed by a wine reception.