Don’t Take Their Word for It: Reply to Fan

Abstract

Abstract In my (2024), I argued that there are principled reasons for thinking that AI cannot be an authority about one’s own mind. The idea is that it is only rational to treat another as an epistemic authority under certain conditions, and AI does not meet one of those conditions. Fan (2025) rejects the account of epistemic authority I favor and sketches an alternative. In this response, I explain why I am not convinced by the objection to the account and why the account fares better than the proposed alternative. I conclude by considering the bearing of the disagreement on issues in the philosophy of AI.