Islam x AI

Overview

This blog post outlines why the Muslim community should engage with the development and conversation of AI. 
This post is targeted at a Muslim audience.

There is a lot that can be said about how the Muslim community – with all of its scholarly brilliance, political rollercoasters and diverse, rich capabilities – can contribute in the conversation of AI.

Importantly, we have, for the past century or two, been a rather reactive community, tossed about amidst an ocean of political strive, economic struggle and moral disparity. However, we have, today, incredible resource and capacity within our community: high degrees of education, fair penetration in global economy and (to a lesser extent) politics, and a retention and nurturing of our spiritual wellbeing. We are by no means wealthy in any of these domains, but at least sufficient to grow something collectively. Using these resources, how can we grow a collective, proactive response to AI?

Here, I conceive of three domains of interest:

Contribution to AI Development

Currently, there are many open philosophical and technical challenges in AI development.

We have an incredibly profound philosophical and spiritual scholarly heritage; we have a lot to contribute to what we make of AI, and what we should make of it for the betterment of humanity. Undoubtedly, our insights will bring remarkable positive outcomes in influencing the direction that AI development takes over the next decade.

Impact can be generated by:

·       Engaging with the current philosophical and technical AI state-of-the-art (SOTA)

·       Through our think thanks, garnering responses, critiques and answers to add to the ongoing discussion in strategic ways

·       Creating technological hubs to tackle the ongoing pressing challenges presented by making AI go well

Challenges for our Community

AI presents many challenges for our community; here are some:

·       Underrepresentation in global models, cascading into broader implications around the worldviews, mindsets and culture of our future generations

·       Ontological challenges:

o   AI may present logically sound and compelling arguments for our entire religious understanding. Do not underestimate its reasoning capabilities; models are getting more capable by the day, and we should not be surprised if very soon they start arguing with us about the existence of God or the Prophethood of Muhammad ﷺ

o   They may imitate verses of the Quran

·       Misinformation:

o   They may provide incorrect reasoning or incorrect/incomplete answers to religious queries or propagating model-maker views for general existential questions, thereby impacting the development of our youth.

·       Amplify existing disparities in power, economy and privilege:

o   Only large institutions like governments and frontier labs have the capacity to grow models; we can expect many regimes to use this technology to further their greed and deepen their insecurities, eating up much of the benefit that would have been possible for the rest of us

Benefits From AI

Not all is doom; AI may uplift our nation in a number of ways also:

·       Supercharge our religious education platforms, helping us educate a larger portion of the Muslim nation and to a greater average depth

·       Help community leaders tackle the many societal problems they encounter day-to-day, easing their load so that they can focus on more important matters.

Islam x AGI Strategy

Considering all of the above, we need to make a strategy for our nation.

This can look something like this:

1.      We make a long, prioritised list for each of the above categories, and add more categories as necessary

2.      We start disseminating work across our communities to address the items under each category

We will organically grow micro-communities that will tackle these issues.
We will have incredible moments of awe and be proud of what we have achieved.
We will eventually hit a significant milestone and understand what to do next.

Engaging with this field is of the utmost importance – nobody will look out for us. We do not want to be left behind again. Lets start writing, blogging, logging, sharing and thinking.

Discussion Around The Soul: Implications & Challenges

This post discusses one implication and challenge posed by the notion of the 'soul' in relation to the conversation around AI.

Religious institutions provide unique perspectives to challenges posed by AGI, as well as facing unique challenges.

One aspect that invites both an insightful approach as well as a contentious challenge is that of the soul. This belief, held by the Abrahamic faiths[1], posits the critical nature of man to be a transcendent one; that is, man is special by measure of an enigmatic quality far greater than the intellect.

The soul grants man the capacity to experience transcendent reality, that of God and the Afterlife; glimpses of this interaction occur during earthly life. According to the Islamic paradigm, this reality is the true and complete story of man, for before the manifestation of the material body comes the creation of the immaterial soul [7:172]. The soul grants an irreplaceable protonic and experiential knowledge of God – man thus seeks meaning till under the soil.

Thus, for the Abrahamic faiths, the greater story of man is that of his soul, not his intellect.

This empowers an individual. When faced with a new and alarming technology that exceeds man’s intellectual prowess – the hallmark of his evolutionary struggle – one who holds man to be largely an intellectual entity is far more greatly taunted than one who believes man to be a spiritual one. This, thus, brings about the undertones of confidence, hope and lively struggle when faced with the many challenges posed by AGI – a fundamentally positive mindset that is pivotal during the age of AGI.

Yet, the soul is mysterious, enigmatic [17:85]. The subtle nature of this humanity’s facet, coupled with the impressive capabilities of AGI, invites a challenge to religious institutions:

If AGI competes and possibly outperforms humanity at almost every science and art, what is the point of the soul? What actual benefit does it bring? Does it even exist?

To answer this, lets first consider another question:

If an LLM tells you that it loves you, does it really love you?

In other words, can AGI exhibit emotion? We observe different parts of an LLM light up when it shares different emotional sentiments, such as love, hate or annoyance. Is this not similar to the human brain’s neural activations, where experience of love or hate induces a certain chemical makeup? Well, what does it mean to ‘feel’ anyway?

Such questions have been debated for centuries; individuals understand these questions according to their measure of truth. For instance, taking a purely empirical ontology, one may define emotion as measurable changes in physiology, with some stretching this definition to artificial physiologies as well. Ultimately, it depends on your ‘truth stick’.

Similarly, notions of consciousness, truth and the meaning of life have been contested for millennia. From an Islamic paradigm, man’s thirst for transcendent meaning stems from the soul. Others may attribute it to intellect, and yet others still may attribute it to environment. Regardless, an AI may be able to resemble thoughts around such existential concerns, but its consciousness is contested and it poses only a numerical understanding of reality[2]. We can understand that this artificial perspective to reality cannot substitute the concerns raised by the soul of meaning that surface within one’s consciousness.

However, what if we grant this machine an embodiment, such that it can perceive, understand and explore reality in all of its wonders and dangers? There is no reason that, even then, AGI should consider the meaning behind our life – the meaning behind its own life is known.

Would it get an emergent behaviour resembling the notions of the soul, with its own philosophical or religious conclusions? I am not sure. If so, it would be an artificial mimicry of humanity’s existential search but would still present a challenge on the importance and position of the soul. If not, then would it at least be able to understand and help with our concerns and questions around the meaning of life? Yes, though we should expect its perspective to be starkly different to ours.

In summary, humans have a protonic knowledge which comes about from the soul. This protonic knowledge is non-existent in LLMs; even with embodiment, it is not immediately clear if such protonic knowledge would be induced. It seems, thus, that humanity’s constant cry for transcendent grace is humanity’s own gift and burden; this mystery is explained through the concept of the soul.

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[1] Other religions also have similar notions of human transcendence

[2] LLMs do not have an experiential understanding of reality (i.e. through the five senses); their understanding of the world is based on language. Similar to us, an LLM may know what a “ball” is because it knows that it is “round”, “playable”, etc. Further, it may relate “round” to concepts such as “circular” or “sphere”. But it does not know the reality of something being “round” or a “ball”. It is similar to you reading about some aquatic mammal which you have never seen; the only reason you are able to comprehend it is because its made up of things which you have individually experienced, like “skin” or “whiskers”. But, if it contains something which you have never heard about then you either need to experience this thing to have notion of it, or it needs to be described to you in similarity. If you have experienced nothing, you know nothing.

 

An experiential understanding of the world helps us appreciate, what Islam and other monotheistic traditions say, God’s signs on the earth: beauty, love, grandeur, pain, struggle, etc. This transcendent comprehension is a function of the soul.