On September 17th, CERC was honored to have Prof. Liz Jackson to deliver a talk titled “What is Knowledge in the Age of AI?”. This seminar is also the first one of the CERC 2026 fall semester seminar series “Educational Research, Knowledge, and Artificial Intelligence: Beyond Scientism and Individualism?”. The talk attracted more than 100 participants (including both in-person and online) from diverse background.
In this seminar, Prof. Jackson discussed different understandings of intelligence and wisdom in ancient Greek and Chinese philosophy, such as conscious and unconscious wisdom. Building on this discussion, Prof. Jackson observed that although Large Language Models (LLMs) perform better in conscious intelligence (in form of deductive reasoning), they can be significantly deficient in defeasible reasoning (as they often mistake generals for universals) and unconscious wisdom (as they lack the embodiment such wishdom requires). Prof. Jackson further argued that researchers and educators should pay more attention to such deficiencies of LLMs when implementing them in educational settings. That is not only because LLMs have deficiency in reasoning, but also because they are highly influenced and even determined by the human knowledge fed to them as well as the capitalist logic they operate on, which manifest in their sycophacy towards users.
Prof. Jackson’s talk sparked vibrant discussions among the audience. Many questions were asked about how educators should utilize AI and LLMs in educational practices. Prof. Jackson further clarified that the deficiencies of LLMs do not mean that they can never be used in education, but rather it reminds us of what is valuable and educationally significant in human interaction and critical thinking that should not be substituted by the utilization of AI.
Prof. Jackson’s talk shed light on the issue of AI and education from a perspective of global philosophy. In the upcoming seminars of this semester, CERC speakers will continue to provide insights on the how education can grapple with the rapidly advancing technology, through drawing on a wide range of philosophical resources.
