Expertise Without Authority

How AI May Be Dissolving the Meaning of Knowing

Modern society runs on a quiet assumption. Some people know more than others, and we can usually tell who they are. We trust doctors because they trained for years, scientists because institutions vet their work, engineers because their systems actually hold together.

AI is starting to break that signal. Not by replacing experts outright, and not by being correct all the time, but by producing answers that look expert without being tied to any human process we can see.

The risk is not simple misinformation. It is something more destabilizing. A world where knowledge still exists, but authority fades because no one can tell where understanding actually lives.