Artificial Ignorance

Agnotology-AI: To understand AI’s power, we must first confront its ignorance

We are entering an era in which artificial intelligence is reshaping not only what we know, but what we can no longer know — and this book explains why. 'Artificial Ignorance' offers a groundbreaking framework for understanding how AI produces, distributes, and governs ignorance in contemporary societies. Rather than analysing AI primarily through the lenses of innovation, efficiency, or intelligence, this book shifts the focus to what AI obscures, omits, or renders unknowable.
The book unfolds in two interrelated parts, moving from the question of what intelligence is to an exploration of the social and political dimensions of ignorance. The first part revisits the philosophical and scientific foundations of intelligence—human, animal, and artificial—probing its boundaries and its intricate connection to consciousness. The second examines artificial intelligence as a cultural and sociological force that is reshaping how knowledge is produced, how epistemic authority is established, and how power circulates in the digital age. Together, these chapters articulate a typology of artificial ignorance that reveals the blind zones of contemporary life—from algorithmic opacity to the deepening cognitive dependency of users on automated systems.
By examining the epistemic, social, and political implications of AI-generated ignorance, the book provides readers with a conceptual toolkit to understand how AI is transforming knowledge, truth, power, and democratic life. Written with academic rigor yet in a clear and accessible style, Artificial Ignorance is intended for scholars, students, policymakers, and intellectually engaged readers concerned with the future of knowledge and human agency.
This book arrives at a decisive moment, as governments, universities, and international organisations are calling for critical frameworks to assess the epistemic and democratic risks of AI. By introducing the concept of artificial ignorance and offering the first taxonomy of its forms, the book provides a timely and indispensable tool for navigating the uncertain future ahead. If we fail to understand AI’s ignorance today, we risk surrendering tomorrow’s knowledge — and power — to systems we did not choose and can no longer question.