Artificial Intelligence and the Crisis of Epistemic Authority: Reconstructing Human Knowledge in the Generative AI Era

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed contemporary knowledge production by enabling rapid generation, synthesis, and circulation of information, while simultaneously creating questions concerning epistemic authority, truth, justification, and human responsibility. This study aims to reconstruct human epistemic authority in the generative AI era by examining whether AI can legitimately function as an epistemic authority and by identifying the conditions required for responsible human knowledge formation. The study employs a conceptual-philosophical approach combining philosophical analysis, conceptual reconstruction, critical literature analysis, and argumentative synthesis. The analysis focuses on epistemic authority, truth, justification, epistemic responsibility, and AI-generated claims as interconnected dimensions of contemporary knowledge practices. The findings demonstrate that generative AI possesses capacity as an epistemic instrument for information generation, synthesis, and cognitive support, but such capacity does not establish autonomous epistemic subjectivity or normative authority. Human agents remain responsible for verifying AI-generated claims, evaluating sources, exercising critical reasoning, establishing justification, assessing ethical consequences, and accepting accountability for knowledge-based decisions. Based on these findings, the study proposes the Human-Centered Epistemic Authority (HCEA) model, which conceptualizes epistemic relations through five interconnected stages: AI-mediated information generation, human verification, rational justification, ethical responsibility, and responsible action. The model contributes a human-centered framework for understanding AI-mediated knowledge production and provides implications for education, academic research, and responsible governance of generative AI within contemporary academic contexts today and educational research.