Lost History and overlooked Present: Mechanical and Artificial Intelligence in the Arabic culture
Abstract: The main aim of this presentation is to investigate how social needs and political circumference inform the use of mechanical and artificial intelligence in Arabic culture. Precursors of AI are engendered in many significant inventions that appeared in the Islamic golden age as a response to human needs at that time. The religious activities and social events such as finding the Qibla, determining prayer times and the initial days of Ramadan and Eid were the impetus behind these inventions. For example, helping with ablution and reminding with the prayer time was the reason behind the invention of the first programmable humanoid robot by the Muslim inventor and engineer al-Jazari, who was known as the "father of robotics" in the 13th century. This mechanical kind of intelligence developed by social and religious needs enabled artificial intelligence in the modern age. Artificial intelligence is currently used in the Arabic postcolonial context to perform an activist role for the social good. AI Arabic literary writings use AI techniques and capabilities to enable literary activism and at the same time save authors’ lives living under authoritarian regimes. This study reflects on these two types of mechanical and artificial Intelligence and the ideological and socio-political factors of their development.
Author bio: Dr. Reham Hosny is an award-winning digital creative writer and a British Academy Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge. She is an Assistant Professor of digital literary studies and critical theory at Minia University and previously, she was a Lecturer at the University of Leeds, UK. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on investigating the cultural, social, and political contexts of Arabic and Anglo-American electronic literature and digital culture. Her work appears in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Postcolonial Writing and her forthcoming book @ArabicELit: Electronic Literature in the Arab World (Bloomsbury) highlights new aesthetics and perspectives of electronic literature outside the Western electronic literature community. She is an editorial board member of academic journals such as the Journal of Digital Islamicate Research by Brill, and a member of various international research networks such as the Intersections, Feminism, Technology & Digital Humanities network (IFTe) and the Global AI Narrative (GAIN) network in the MENA region. Her co-authored novel, Al-Barrah [The Announcer] (2019, 2021), the first Arabic artificial intelligence novel, won the 2022 Robert Coover Award’s Honorable Mention, and her short story collection Amma Baʿd [and thereafter] (2012) won the Ihsan Abdel Quddous Literary Prize for short story writing. Dr. Hosny is the first Arab and African to be elected as a director at the international Electronic Literature Organization (ELO). She is directing arabicelit, the first initiative focusing on globalizing Arabic electronic literature in English. Dr. Hosny is an invited speaker at many international conferences, workshops, and symposiums in different places around the world.
Recorded Presentation | 26 April 2023
#Culture #History
