A Pakistani man won Facebook Ethics in AI Research Award

A scholar from Pakistan ‘Junaid Qadir’ has won the Facebook Ethics in AI Research Initiative for the Asia Pacific award. It was an initiative taken up to support the amazing academic research in artificial intelligence (AI) ethics.

A Professor at the Information Technology University (ITU) of Punjab took part in the research with the co-investigator Assistant Professor at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi Amana Raquib.

Facebook partnered with the Centre for Civil Society and Governance of the University of Hong Kong and the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Hong Kong to support the AI ethics research in the Asia Pacific. The aim was to launch a request for proposals (RFP) in December 2019.

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Principal investigator of the Project Junaid Qadir said,“We’re excited to be awarded this grant and are looking forward to beginning this project.”

Adding, “Artificial Intelligence (AI) has great potential to facilitate sustainable human development goals, but it also has significant potential for abuse. Through this work, a culturally-informed, pro-social AI framework for Pakistan and the Muslim world will be proposed. In this regard, the rich Islamic legal tradition and the work on objectives (Maqasid) of Islamic law will be leveraged for studying contemporary AI-related issues.”