Hello, and Assalamu Alaikum. I am sure the header photo caught you by surprise due to its uncanny relation to the title. The secret? It was generated using artificial intelligence. Specifically, it was created via stable diffusion on DALL-E via Midjourney, a software for leveraging the internets pictorial data and using artificial intelligence to generate images given prompts.
My name is Arifeen. After extensively searching the web, I discovered that there currently does not exist a well-known podcast series at the intersection of artificial intelligence and Islam. I am here to change that, insha’Allah (God-willing).
This idea was inspired to me by the fact that Muslims have long been at the forefront of innovation. From the development of algorithms and algebra by Al'Khwarizmi to the golden age of Moorish Spain, it is well known in history that Muslims invent. Therefore, it is imperative that Muslims of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds understand what most believe to be the age of a new revolution using machine learning. Or, those interested in Islam can come to understand the Islamic perspective on AI.
The purposes of this podcast would be manifold:
- For those who have published papers or done work on Islamic machine learning, I hope to converse with them in future podcasts. Examples of people I would love to host iA include Jawad H Alkhatib who built an audio ML detection algorithm to identify reciters; Anis Koubaa who published “Activity Monitoring of Islamic Prayer (Salat) Postures using Deep Learning”; and the creator of Tarteel, an AI iOS app that helps one better their Quran recitation using speech recognition of Arabic.
- In addition, I plan to iA have these speakers attend Muslim conferences for students in high school and college like MIST (the Muslim Interscholastic Tournament and MSA Showdown) to raise discussions on AI at younger ages to students
- Muslims in technology who have yet to see a strong platform to discuss AI and Islam can contribute to this series
- General education to Muslims and people of all backgrounds on what artificial intelligence is at mosques or Islamic schools across the world
- Serve as a platform for scholars and Muslim teachers to discuss the ethics and limitations of Islam in accordance with jurisprudence
- Coming to terms with the biases that exist in model day General Learning models and the biases they may inherently exhibit, as well as working to end them, such as attributing Muslim to violence in ChatGPT and Midjourney, as well as other image large learning models
- Discussions on AI at conferences like ICNA and MAS
- Collaborating with professors at universities like MITs Marzyeh Ghassemi on Muslims in ML
The possibilities are endless, as you can sense. Later on, I plan on creating a website iA with the goal of hosting these podcasts and articles relating to Islam and ML. In the far future, finally I plan on working to establish an AI Muslim institute, with a masajid and more iA.
Here is the link to my SoundCloud playlist, I’d love for you to take a listen: https://on.soundcloud.com/K1yxKRyF6qxyUDAh9
insha’Allah I am asking each of you reading this to contribute even $5 so that I may work on bettering any setup needed to start this necessary series. In advance, thank you for being a part of this, May Allah reward you beyond measure with a means of sadaqah jaariya in this assistance. Thank you for being part of this.