• About
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    In 2009, Zaytuna College was founded in Berkeley, California, with a mission that called for grounding students in the Islamic scholarly tradition as well as in the cultural currents and critical ideas shaping modern society.

  • Academics
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    As a Muslim liberal arts college in the West, Zaytuna offers a curriculum that provides its students with a foundation in the intellectual heritage of two major world civilizations: the Islamic and the Western.

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  • Admissions & Aid
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    Our mission is to educate students to become morally, intellectually, and spiritually accomplished individuals ready to contribute to our contemporary world in ways that are proportionate to their gifts and to the needs of human society.

     

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  • Campus Life
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    Zaytuna’s campus is on Holy Hill and students enter the College as part of a cohort, a community of learners that travel together through the curriculum.

Ethics, AI + Islam Summit

The Ethics, AI + Islam Summit was held at Zaytuna College on September 9, 2024. It was cohosted by Zaytuna College as part of The GMW Network’s Muslim Tech Week. 12000 Strong member, Shahzad Younas, the founder and CEO of Muzz, shared his key takeaways from the summit for our readers. 

I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend the Ethics, AI, and Islam Summit hosted by Zaytuna College a few weeks ago, and I wanted to share some thoughts and learnings from the day. 

Firstly, having a religious institution actually talking about the matters of the day (and the future), discussing its implications and how we as Muslims should navigate this new world we find ourselves in, is precisely what we need.  Too often we find a disconnect between our religious elders and learned folk, and the practical guidance needed to solve the real and pressing problems of the day.  We must continue to be forward-thinking and present the Islamic viewpoint to modern problems with confidence. 

AI is being thrust upon us, whether we like it or not. Big tech is scrambling to find (and force) applications of it - all in the spirit of efficiency, automation, cost cutting and “progress.”  As Muslims, we must ask - at what cost? What is "progress?" 

Just as smartphones and the internet have yielded much good, they have also presented us with a litany of modern problems that our youth in particular are being forced to reckon with. Shortened attention spans, poorer recollection memory, the sheer speed and scale at which false information can travel faster than truth, are all modern phenomena whose damaging effects are becoming more apparent each day.   

As someone who is building out Muslim platforms for marriage and social networks, I often wrestle with the concept of introducing more AI into the Muzz app.  In the world of filtered photos and common complaints about inauthenticity, it feels odd that mainstream dating apps have pushed AI prompts/conversation starters into their products.  In my eyes, this then sets the tone for not only imagery to be manipulated, but even conversations and personalities being ‘enhanced’ online.  In a world where singles are screaming for authenticity, this seems to be unhelpful.  As such, we have held off forcing AI/ML into our product if we cannot prove to ourselves that it genuinely helps you get closer to a more compatible spouse. 

Billions of dollars are being spent in this AI arms race. Talk of large segments of the workforce being eradicated means we are forced to look at ourselves and our future choices. What direction should we take to ensure we aren’t on the short end of the AI stick as it gets exponentially “smarter”?   

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf quoted entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who argued that liberal arts degrees hold more value in the era of artificial intelligence than many may think. 

This sentiment holds true.  AI can now pass the bar exam better than 90% of lawyers, so why bother to study law?  Zaytuna’s focus on the intersection of the liberal arts and Islamic studies means their students are, in sha Allah, well-placed to navigate this new world and provide value in areas that AI fails to capture. 

The focus of the talks then turned to the ethical component of modern LLM’s and AI models. 

A simplistic example was presented around ChatGPT being asked how to hack a neighbor’s wifi. Without any ethical framework, it would present various options to steal their Wi-Fi.  Embed an ethical component, and it would guide you away from doing such a thing and prevent such application of its vast dataset. 

Whilst this seems trivial, the role of AI in the increased calculation and automation of modern warfare is anything but. For example, the industrial war complex is well-funded, yet powerfully destructive. 

Drones were the first step in removing human intervention from air strikes, with triggers being pulled remotely in video-game fashion.  Machines incapable of showing mercy; no more having to deal with veterans with PTSD and flashbacks of the horrors they've seen. This is the future of warfare. 

Perhaps these are the most extreme ends of the destructive power of AI, yet these are precisely the areas we must tackle from an ethical and Islamic standpoint.  How do we limit, guide, and influence the use and misuse of AI?  Can the Islamic scholarly tradition provide a framework or inputs into such a model? 

I’ve always found the religious community somewhat reluctant to engage with modern reality whilst yearning for simpler times.  Not that “simpler times” is a bad thing at all.  But tech is here and here to stay. We must confront it head on.  

I praise Zaytuna for leading this effort. Whilst we didn’t necessarily walk away with all the answers, we were forced to confront one truth: tech and AI are moving at an increasingly rapid rate.  Our scholars and religious and academic communities must engage and keep up, otherwise we risk being an afterthought in the new world being formed around us.   

Shahzad Younas, CEO and Founder of Muzz

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