MBZUAI has launched "WAI", a community initiative to provide youth and senior citizens with a foundational understanding of AI and its applications. The inaugural event hosted over 30 youth and 15 senior citizens at MBZUAI’s campus for a day of learning and discussion. The program includes interactive sessions and hands-on activities in prompt engineering, with all participants receiving certificates of completion. Why it matters: This initiative promotes AI awareness across generations and aligns with the UAE’s Year of Community 2025, fostering inclusivity and shared learning in the digital age.
MBZUAI launched its Executive Program, a hybrid course for government and industry leaders to promote greater engagement with AI. The program's first session, led by MBZUAI President Eric Xing, covered the history and future of AI and machine learning. It aims to accelerate AI development across various sectors in the UAE, focusing on efficiency, cost savings, and environmental impact reduction. Why it matters: This initiative signals the UAE's commitment to fostering AI literacy and driving AI adoption across key sectors, aligning with national economic development plans.
Christian Montag from Ulm University gave a talk about assessing attitudes towards AI, covering the IMPACT framework (Modality, Person, Area, Country/Culture, and Transparency). He discussed how factors like age, gender, personality, and culture relate to attitudes toward AI, and how those attitudes link to trust in automation and specific AI models like ChatGPT and Ernie Bot. Montag's research explores the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, behavioral economics, and computer science, focusing on the impact of AI on the human mind. Why it matters: Understanding public perception of AI is crucial for responsible development and deployment, especially in the Arab world where cultural and demographic factors can significantly shape attitudes.
MBZUAI and the Manara Center for Coexistence and Dialogue hosted a panel discussion at the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi on the role of faith in the age of AI. The panel featured scholars, religious leaders, and AI experts including MBZUAI President Eric Xing. Panelists discussed the differences between human consciousness/spirituality and AI capabilities, emphasizing the human capacity for higher consciousness, empathy, and collective understanding. Why it matters: The event highlights the UAE's focus on ethical AI development that considers the intersection of technology, spirituality, and human values.
Dr. Munawar Hayat from Monash University gave a talk on the history of AI, recent breakthroughs in deep learning, and future research directions. The talk covered computer vision, NLP, autonomous driving, and reinforcement learning. Dr. Hayat also discussed the limitations of AI and challenges in the field. Why it matters: This lecture helps contextualize the rapid progress of AI for students in the region.
MBZUAI researchers, in collaboration with over 70 researchers, have created the Culturally diverse Visual Question Answering (CVQA) benchmark to evaluate cultural understanding in multimodal LLMs. The CVQA dataset includes over 10,000 questions in 31 languages and 13 scripts, testing models on images of local dishes, personalities, and monuments. Testing of several multimodal LLMs on the CVQA benchmark revealed significant challenges, even for top models. Why it matters: This benchmark highlights the need for AI models to better understand diverse cultures, promoting fairness and relevance across different languages and regions.
MBZUAI is hosting a public webinar on October 6 titled ‘Evolution of Artificial Intelligence: Past, Current and Future’. Dr. Munawar Hayat will discuss AI developments, breakthroughs, and future impact, highlighting deep learning, computer vision, NLP, autonomous driving, and reinforcement learning. The session will also cover AI limitations and future research directions. Why it matters: Public engagement initiatives like this webinar are crucial for fostering broader understanding and trust in AI technologies within the UAE community.