Journal of Social Science and Human Research Studies (JSSHRS)

The Ontological Drift of Learning: Presence, Authority, And Instrumental Reason in AI Platforms

Yingying, Wang, Hashim, Mohd Ekram AI Hafis Bin

16 February 2026 · Vol. 2, Issue 2, pp. 116-121

DOI: 10.65150/EP-jsshrs/V2E2/2026-05

Abstract

This article presents a conceptually rigorous, argument-driven paper on the ontological and ethical crisis of higher education in the age of AI-mediated learning and platformized new media. Higher education is undergoing an ontological drift: learning is increasingly framed as optimization, efficiency, and measurable outputs, which subtly erodes (a) lived presence in learning, (b) the ethical relation between teacher–student, and (c) the authority of knowledge as a shared, cultivated horizon. Treating AI not as a neutral tool but as a socio-technical mediator that reorganizes attention, temporality, accountability, and what counts as “understanding.”

Keywords: higher education, AI-mediated learning, platformised new media, ontological crisis, ethical crisis, phenomenology, critical theory

Read the full text on Journal of Social Science and Human Research Studies →The full peer-reviewed article and PDF are hosted on the journal's site (the version of record).

Yingying, Wang, Hashim, & Mohd Ekram AI Hafis Bin (2026). The Ontological Drift of Learning: Presence, Authority, And Instrumental Reason in AI Platforms. Journal of Social Science and Human Research Studies, 2(2), 116-121. https://doi.org/10.65150/EP-jsshrs/V2E2/2026-05

@article{Yingying2026,
  title   = {The Ontological Drift of Learning: Presence, Authority, And Instrumental Reason in AI Platforms},
  author  = {Yingying and Wang and Hashim and Mohd Ekram AI Hafis Bin},
  journal = {Journal of Social Science and Human Research Studies},
  year    = {2026},
  volume  = {2},
  number  = {2},
  pages   = {116-121},
  doi     = {10.65150/EP-jsshrs/V2E2/2026-05},
  url     = {https://doi.org/10.65150/EP-jsshrs/V2E2/2026-05}
}

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