Critical Humanities in the Age of AI: Pedagogy, Ethics, and Epistemic Pluralism

G Victor Emmanuel Raju^1* & Boddu Chandrashekar² 
¹Research Scholar & ²Assistant Professor, Department of English, Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation (KLEF University), Hyderabad 500075, Telangana, India. *Corresponding Author.

^{Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 18, Issue 2, 2026. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v18n2.13
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Abstract

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to reshape epistemic and institutional frameworks, the humanities stand at a pivotal juncture, confronted by technological disruption yet simultaneously revitalised by the critical opportunities it presents. We humanities scholars are living in an important moment in which technology, with its Artificial Intelligence (AI) conditioning, is challenging our epistemologies and structures while also reinvigorating them with new critical opportunities. In this paper, the authors explore the possibility of evolving and thriving in an age of AI without sacrificing the values and purpose of humanities education, but rather with their values and purpose reimagined. AI may be quick, pattern-recognizing, and predictive, but it lacks the innate human qualities of empathy, ethical discernment, and cultural interpretation. In this study, drawing on educational frameworks, theories, and approaches from philosophy of education, digital humanities, and critical data studies, the authors reflect on a few ways the core values of humanistic inquiry are being remediated in new contexts. It also looks at how teachers are using AI tools to enhance instead of replacing human effort, creativity, and critical thinking. This paper reflects a belief that an updated pedagogy for the humanities is necessary to teach human values and to raise citizens who are able to function in an unforeseeable future that is dominated by machines. The paper argues that the humanities become essential ambassadors to a more human and wise technological future through the development of a hybrid curriculum model for the 21st Century, by the use of dialogic and interdisciplinary pedagogies, and through the adoption of Epistemic Pluralism.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Humanities Education, Epistemic Pluralism, Digital Humanities, Critical Thinking.