Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mollema, Warmhold Jan Thomas
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.07531
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909711968763904
author Mollema, Warmhold Jan Thomas
author_facet Mollema, Warmhold Jan Thomas
contents Epistemic injustice related to AI is a growing concern. In relation to machine learning models, epistemic injustice can have a diverse range of sources, ranging from epistemic opacity, the discriminatory automation of testimonial prejudice, and the distortion of human beliefs via generative AI's hallucinations to the exclusion of the global South in global AI governance, the execution of bureaucratic violence via algorithmic systems, and interactions with conversational artificial agents. Based on a proposed general taxonomy of epistemic injustice, this paper first sketches a taxonomy of the types of epistemic injustice in the context of AI, relying on the work of scholars from the fields of philosophy of technology, political philosophy and social epistemology. Secondly, an additional conceptualization on epistemic injustice in the context of AI is provided: generative hermeneutical erasure. I argue that this injustice the automation of 'epistemicide', the injustice done to epistemic agents in their capacity for collective sense-making through the suppression of difference in epistemology and conceptualization by LLMs. AI systems' 'view from nowhere' epistemically inferiorizes non-Western epistemologies and thereby contributes to the erosion of their epistemic particulars, gradually contributing to hermeneutical erasure. This work's relevance lies in proposal of a taxonomy that allows epistemic injustices to be mapped in the AI domain and the proposal of a novel form of AI-related epistemic injustice.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_07531
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A taxonomy of epistemic injustice in the context of AI and the case for generative hermeneutical erasure
Mollema, Warmhold Jan Thomas
Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
K.4
Epistemic injustice related to AI is a growing concern. In relation to machine learning models, epistemic injustice can have a diverse range of sources, ranging from epistemic opacity, the discriminatory automation of testimonial prejudice, and the distortion of human beliefs via generative AI's hallucinations to the exclusion of the global South in global AI governance, the execution of bureaucratic violence via algorithmic systems, and interactions with conversational artificial agents. Based on a proposed general taxonomy of epistemic injustice, this paper first sketches a taxonomy of the types of epistemic injustice in the context of AI, relying on the work of scholars from the fields of philosophy of technology, political philosophy and social epistemology. Secondly, an additional conceptualization on epistemic injustice in the context of AI is provided: generative hermeneutical erasure. I argue that this injustice the automation of 'epistemicide', the injustice done to epistemic agents in their capacity for collective sense-making through the suppression of difference in epistemology and conceptualization by LLMs. AI systems' 'view from nowhere' epistemically inferiorizes non-Western epistemologies and thereby contributes to the erosion of their epistemic particulars, gradually contributing to hermeneutical erasure. This work's relevance lies in proposal of a taxonomy that allows epistemic injustices to be mapped in the AI domain and the proposal of a novel form of AI-related epistemic injustice.
title A taxonomy of epistemic injustice in the context of AI and the case for generative hermeneutical erasure
topic Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
K.4
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.07531