On December 13, 2024, Dr. Pak-Hang Wong, Assistant Professor of the Department of Religion and Philosophy of Hong Kong Baptist University, was invited to visit the UIC campus and gave a lecture in the afternoon, entitled “Epistemic Rights as Human Rights in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Confucian Perspective”. The lecture was hosted by Prof. Li Jianhui, Academic Registrar of UIC, and attended by Prof. Tze-Ki Hon, Dr. Jianning Chen, Dr. Bo Yan, Dr. Iceman Leung from SCC, Dr. Kar Bo Wong from SGE, and some students.

        The lecture began with a discussion of artificial intelligence and the need for epistemic rights, arguing that AI brings new ways of interacting and the role of information comes to the fore. Drawing on Mathias Risse's view of epistemic rights, it is argued that in digital life-worlds, people's roles as users, revealers, and bearers of information and data become integral to their being fully functioning and flourishing members of the society, but the necessity of these roles has not been adequately addressed in the existing human rights frameworks. Epistemic roles can be categorized into: individual epistemic subjects, collective epistemic subjects, individual epistemic objects, and collective epistemic objects. With regard to the cultural dimension of epistemic rights, Risse’s account is based on an understanding of human rights as “natural” rights, without taking into account cultural pluralism, and his understanding of knowledge is focused on propositional knowledge, which is not necessarily shared across different cultures.

        The Confucian understanding of knowledge differs from Risse in that it focuses more on the relationship between knowledge in practice and individual behavior, ability, etc., especially in a given situation, and that knowledge is acquired through the individual's practice of rituals and others. Therefore, the Confucian epistemic subject not only seeks information, but is also a practitioner who embodies knowledge through appropriate action, and Confucianism emphasizes the positive role of the individual in maintaining collective epistemic standards, and that the individual should be known by the community through his or her own virtues. Confucian epistemic rights include the right to education, the right to a good and healthy epistemic environment guided by Confucian values, the right to be free from non-propositional epistemic interference such as emotional and psychological interference, and the right to the ethical design of digital infrastructures and the ethical control of collected data. Confucianism thus offers different understandings of knowledge and epistemic roles that enrich the discussion of epistemic rights as human rights in the AI era.

        After the lecture, Dr. Wong had a lively Q&A session with the audience, Prof. Li gave him thanks and souvenirs on behalf of UIC, and finally a group photo was taken.

Reporter: Jianing CHEN

Photographer: Karen WU

Translated and edited by Jianing CHEN