Silicon Scholars: AI and The Muslim Ummah


The 80's movie Terminator depicts a bleak world where a cyborg assassin is sent to the past to eliminate the mother of an unborn child who holds the key to humanity's salvation.

The frightening prospect of machines that can teach themselves and, in the worst-case scenario, machines that are more intelligent than human beings has led senior scientists to raise the alarm about the ethics of Artificial Intelligence and its potential destructive force.

For Muslims, AI raises many ethical questions about human society, the economy and, indeed, the potential for AI-inspired ijtihad, machines that tell us how to live our Islamic lives. Are scholars and orators about to go out of business as might taxi drivers and couriers in the coming technological age.

To help us understand the world of AI, we have invited Riaz Hassan onto The Thinking Muslim. Riaz is works in the field of innovation for many years and has had direct and extensive experience in the use of AI and the commercial use of ChatGPT. He has worked on using AI and robotics on one of the largest infrastructure projects in this country. He has responsibility for looking at the wider dimensions of innovations with its associated impacts on our economy.

Timestamps

00:00 - Introduction
02:40 - Should we be afraid of AI?
03:38 - What is AI?
05:53 - What differentiates AI from other technology?
07:15 - Types of AI
08:15 - What is generative AI?
10:08 - What is AGI? (Artificial General Intelligence)
11:57 - What to expect after ChatGPT?
14:13 - The issue with driverless cars
15:40 - Imam Ghazali's version of the trolley problem
18:02 - Islamic values in AI
22:08 - Dystopian features of AI
26:50 - America vs. China
29:29 - What professions are going to be replaced?
34:34 - Labour and economy
38:48 - Redefining work
44:26 - Concerns around AI
49:08 - AI in the wrong hands?
51:04 - AI in warfare
53:04 - Can AI do ijtihad?
57:33 - Can acquire consciousness?
1:01:25 - Why AI cannot replace human intelligence
1:06:10 - Tackling crises in faith
1:07:01 - Can a supercomputer become Khalifa?

Published on Sep 29, 2023


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