Following a successful opening day, Der Divan – The Arab Cultural House, in cooperation with the Center for Humans & Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin) and Hamad Bin Khalifa University (Doha, Qatar), continued the “Cross-Cultural Artificial Intelligence” Symposium on October 10, 2025.
The second day brought together leading scholars and practitioners to explore the religious, cultural, and ethical dimensions of Artificial Intelligence and its impact on global societies.
After the welcoming speech by H.E. Abdalla Al Hamar, Ambassador of the State of Qatar and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Divan, Dr. Ahmad M. Hasnah, President of Hamad Bin Khalifa University, delivered special remarks, followed by an opening presentation by Prof. Iyad Rahwan, Director of the Center for Humans & Machines. Rahwan highlighted the importance of designing AI systems that respect cultural diversity while promoting shared ethical values.
Session 1: AI and Religion
The first session explored the intersection of artificial intelligence and spiritual traditions. Mohammed Ghaly (Hamad Bin Khalifa University) examined the reciprocal relationship between AI and Islamic moral thought in his talk “Charting the Two-Way Encounter: Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic Moral Tradition.”
Beth Singler (University of Zurich) followed with “Machine Religion,” discussing new spiritualities and cultural practices emerging from human interactions with large language models. A lively panel moderated by Annette Zimmermann deepened the discussion on the interplay between technology, faith, and ethics.
Session 2: Measurement of Culture & Bias
Prof. Ingmar Weber (Saarland University) introduced the concept of “Slow AI” — an approach encouraging reflection and civic engagement rather than efficiency alone. Rafiya Javed (Google DeepMind) then presented her research on demographic bias in large language models when responding to human rights–related prompts. The panel discussion, moderated by Matthew J. Dennis, explored strategies to enhance fairness and accountability in AI systems.
Session 3: The Challenge of Low-Resource Languages
The afternoon sessions turned to linguistic diversity. Prof. Mona Diab (Carnegie Mellon University) argued for the inclusion of anthropological insight in AI design through her talk “Hire Your Anthropologist!”, while Prof. Mustafa Jarrar (Hamad Bin Khalifa University & Birzeit University) introduced culturally aware Arabic datasets and resources to advance Arabic NLP. The discussion, moderated by Dr. Mengchen Dong, highlighted the urgent need to empower low-resource languages in AI development.
Session 4: Engineering Generative AI
Sanjay Chawla (Hamad Bin Khalifa University) presented FANAR, an Arabic-centric multimodal generative AI platform designed to integrate Arabic language, culture, and Islamic values into the forefront of AI innovation. Dr. Hassan Abu Alhaija (NVIDIA) complemented the discussion with insights from industrial AI research.
Keynote Lecture
The symposium concluded with a keynote by Juergen Pfeffer (Technical University of Munich), titled “Towards a Global Ethos for the AI-Driven World.” Pfeffer called for a global ethical framework that acknowledges cultural differences while uniting around shared human principles.
The second day of the symposium offered profound scholarly perspectives and rich dialogue — a fitting conclusion to an event that placed cultural diversity and human values at the heart of artificial intelligence research.
Program
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