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AI and ChatGPT: Spiritual Resilience and Ethics | Khutbah
With the advent of AI and ChatGPT, how do Muslims approach convenience and rapid technological innovation with the proper spiritual resilience and framework needed to thrive? Dr. Omar Suleiman discusses in this khutbah.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. We begin by praising Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for him. We bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam is his final messenger. We ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon him, the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow in his blessed path until the day of judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahuma ameen. Dear brothers and sisters, the following khutbah was not prepared using chatGBT or any artificial intelligence. I'm going to start off with that for a reason. Because as ridiculous as that sounded for me to say it, there may come a time where that is actually the case. That people prepare their entire khutbahs, that people prepare their entire lectures. Allah knows best, people will try to replace imams and khateebs with some sort of artificial intelligence and the tools and the technology that has become made available to us today. Now I'm going to start off by saying as well that this khutbah is relevant to each and every single person that is in this masjid today, even if you have not yet engaged a single one of the new tools and technologies that have become made available to us. And count me amongst them who have yet to even touch chatGBT or many of these other things that have become available to us. That we pray Allah azawajal allows us to use for benefits and allows us to curtail the harm of. Allahumma ameen. But in these 15 minutes, I actually wanted to speak about the advent of these technologies and how as Muslims we can approach this from a spiritual framework, really not knowing much about what is to come in the years that are ahead and what these technologies are actually going to look like for us. How do we as Muslims deal with this unraveling new reality for us, not from a place of paranoia,
but from a place of preparedness and fit it into our entire framework and our entire existence of ubudiyah, of being in a state of worship to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and in a state of constant benefits. And I want to begin that as Muslims, we have always been able to see the benefit in things that are around us, especially when they become more and more inevitable. And our scholars of the past have been at the pioneering front of making technologies that would have otherwise been entirely harmful or even producing technologies that would be to the benefit of people, whether it's in science or medicine or math or what it may be. But we've also been able to spiritually frame everything, no matter how material it seems. There are people, walhamdulillah, that have guidance from our Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam on everything from how we eat our food to how we use the restroom. And so certainly we have an ethical framework by which we approach the things that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is putting around us today. And as we look at these technologies that at the very least become relevant to you because maybe your kids or maybe someone that you know is using them and as a whole the output of humanity is more and more dependent upon these technologies, I want us to first and foremost appreciate that there is a difference between tools that are for the benefit of people and tools that are for the destruction of people. And we have to understand that what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given to us almost always has the potential to be a gift. So when we talk about tools that arise amongst us, Allah azawajal has given us the ability to see the difference between tools that become more precise with medical technology to the benefit of people.
If anyone has had a surgery recently or anyone works in the medical force as many Muslims do, you see the way that these things are evolving and that is something to say alhamdulillah for. We see the difference between a more precise medical technology and a more precise military technology that makes killing people so much easier and so much more automatic and usually, unfortunately, at the other side of that are poor Muslim populations disproportionately and it's a tragedy if it's any innocent life or any innocent casualty. We see the difference between those two things, a medical technology that's saving more lives and a military technology that's killing more people. Muslim pioneers have always been at the forefront of taking the beneficial of something and removing the harmful. And they also did not let their suspicion of what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has gifted them with lead to stagnation of human progress. What do I mean by that? When they heard allama al-insana ma lam ya'lam, allama al-insana bil qalam, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has taught man by the pen. He's taught man that which man did not know. Muslims did not treat knowledge with suspicion. They used that knowledge and they saw that all as coming from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and they thanked Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for it with their tongues and they thanked Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala by using and producing that which was beneficial to mankind. And so when we enter into this maze now of artificial intelligence and all of these different tools and technologies, I wanted us to look at it first and foremost from the macro and then from the micro as individuals. What does this mean for me as a Muslim as things start to arise in my life that seemingly are just tools for convenience? How do I have the spiritual resilience to not fall for something that could actually be harmful and start to contribute in a way inshallah ta'ala that is beneficial?
And you'll find journal after journal now, professor after professor, people that even worked within these sectors that are writing about the danger of these tools and the need to produce ethics around them. That perhaps as human beings we're moving too fast. We're making things and then because of consumerism we're releasing them without putting any type of guardrails on them and then it just becomes a competition, a competition, a competition. And subhanallah first and foremost we recalibrate and we say that when tech vision has no god vision then it becomes destructive just like everything else. Because a godless vision for humanity cannot possibly put guardrails on anything that is produced for humanity. Because at the end of the day anything that enables convenience is going to be deemed inherently good. Anything that makes life easier is going to be looked at as inherently good. And so we should do whatever we can do and that's progress. How do you define progress from a secular perspective? We should do whatever it is we become capable of and we define our progress as humanity because we're now able to do this and we weren't able to do this before. And so it becomes about maximizing profit, maximizing efficiency, maximizing happiness and eventually what ends up happening is you eliminate the workforce altogether subhanallah who would have thought that within just these few months of these technologies becoming available to us a 14 year old could do something on their phone and say make me the visuals for this and this and that that would replace an entire industry or at least experts and the hard work of labor and creativity. So you're going to have workers unions and what do we do because now these technologies are making the workforce irrelevant as well. And it's all in the name of what maximizing, maximizing, maximizing.
Make the most of it, make the most of it, make the most of it and I want to remind you that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala speaks to spiritual diseases that underlie all sorts of evolving realities. You've been destroyed by the pursuit of more, more, more, more, more destroys you as a human being at the individual level and destroys a society as well when it becomes the pursuit of abundance. I want more of this, I want more of that and more doesn't always just mean more money. It could mean I want more done in as little time as possible. Productivity is good but when the more becomes the definition then that's a problem. I want more done for me with as little effort on my part as possible. Of course we want to make use of tools for benefit but what happens when I don't know how to do for myself anything anymore because I've been focused on the production of more and more and more and more and so eventually in the name of productivity you end up eliminating the purpose of your own existence altogether. If that's all that you exist for, more, more, more, more and subhanAllah you think about the emptiness of people and the words, how true they ring, you've been destroyed by this pursuit of abundance. You're not happy, not as individuals or societies despite your ability to seemingly do more, gain more, enjoy more because that's not the void that Allah has put in your human heart that can only be filled with Tawheed, that can only be filled by your belief in your service to God. There is nothing else that's going to fill that void and you'll destroy yourself with that. And you think about the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam when he spoke about this Ummah, when he said, والله ما الفقر أخشى عليكم He said, I don't fear poverty for you. ولكني أخشى عليكم أن تبسط الدنيا عليكم كما بسطت على من كان قبلكم
فتنافسوها كما تنافسوها وتهليككم كما أهلكتهم Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said, I don't fear poverty for you. I don't fear a lack of resources for you. I don't fear your inability to take that next step when it comes to your production. What I fear for you is something far greater than that. I actually fear for you that the resources become plentiful for you, that the dunya opens its doors to you and it destroys you the way that it destroyed those that came before you. Because even if Firaun did not have the same technologies, Firaun had the same spiritual diseases that drive much of the production and tyrannical uses of technology today. And so you take a step back and again you don't treat the whole thing haram haram haram but you look back at your heart, you look back at your spiritual disease and what the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam was speaking to us about. And SubhanAllah as you read into these works of people that are familiar with the evolving of these technologies and things that are becoming aware to us. One of the things that really struck me SubhanAllah in some of these writings is that the only thing that is going to be able to sort of curb ourselves, curb our usage of these things and not falling victim to them is a cultural resistance to dependency. I'm going to say that again, a cultural resistance to dependency. And when you think of that from a worldly framework, what people will speak about is this idea of human beings not becoming so dependent on technology that they no longer know how to do basic functions. You know, how many of you can remember a phone number over the last 10 years, right? The GPS, the, you know, even things that are very beneficial to us but we become so dependent that we lose basic functions in our brains. And so usually when cultural dependency is spoken about from a worldly perspective, it's
we don't want to have people that don't know how to put on their clothes, that don't know how to brush their teeth, that don't know how to do basic things anymore because they've become so dependent on technology. And so there has to be a cultural resistance to this where people still know how to do things. People still know how to change a tire, right? People, you know, that ship has long sails. People still know how to do the basic things for themselves because they have become so dependent on these technologies. And so they'll stress the value of knowledge acquisition and skill acquisition, purely from what? From a dunya-y perspective. And SubhanAllah, you look at what Allah has given to us and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam has given to us with a akhirah-oriented mindset in this regard, a cultural resistance to dependency. When the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam taught us to seek refuge in what? اللهم إني أعوذ بك من العجز والكسل Oh Allah, I seek refuge in you from laziness and incapacity. It's not a good thing for a Muslim to be lazy. It's one of the worst things that you could have, otherwise you wouldn't seek refuge in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala from it, no matter how convenient things are to you. اللهم إني أعوذ بك من العجز والكسل When Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us in the Qur'an, سَنَكْتُبُ مَا قَدَّمُوا وَآثَارَهُمْ That we will write everything that they have produced, as well as their athar. And I'm purposely not translating the athar because it has two meanings in this ayah. One of them, the scholars mention, is their legacy. Their legacy, the footprints, the effect. There are people that do things, and even if they're not responsible for the final product, they're there in the process, and Allah rewards them for that. So Allah Azawajal rewards people in the process of doing good, that make things happen behind the scenes, in their present or in their future.
But some of the scholars also say that another meaning of this is not sunnat al-hasana, is not a good legacy, but it's literally their footsteps. As Hasan al-Basri rahimahullah said, اَيْخُطَاهُمْ بِأَرْجُرِهِمْ Their footsteps towards good. Everything that they put forth an effort towards, Allah will reward the effort. And so there is a connection between the actual effort itself and the reward, not just the final product. But what you do, and getting away from that dependency upon things that are outside of your own production. So سَنَكْتُبُ مَا قَدَّمُوا وَآثَارُهُمْ We will write down their footsteps, خُطَاهُمْ When the Prophet ﷺ said to the people that would walk to the masjid, دِيَارَكُمْ تُكْتَبْ آثَارُكُمْ Stay in your homes and walk to the masjid, Allah will write down every single footstep for you. Here to Salatul Jum'ah, wherever you parked and however you walked to the masjid, كَانَ لَهُ بِكُلِّ خُطْوَةٍ عَمَلُ سَنَةٍ أَجْرُ صِيَامِهَا وَقِيَامِهَا The Prophet ﷺ said, with every footstep that you take towards Jum'ah, Allah Subhanu Wa Ta'ala writes down for you a year of fasting and a year of Qiyam. May Allah Azawajal accept it from each one of us. Allahumma Ameen. Every footstep that you take, incentivizing the footstep itself. That you have to work, you have to put in those extra things so that you can stay connected to that ajr. When the Prophet ﷺ talks about a person who reads the Qur'an and struggles, and Allah giving them ajran, two rewards as they struggle with every single letter, and Allah writes down ten hasanat for every single letter that you pronounce. You can't capture that otherwise. وَكَانَ سَعْيُكُمْ مَشْكُورًا And your efforts have been rewarded by Allah.
You can't capture that otherwise. When the Prophet ﷺ says, الْأَجْرُ عَلَى قَدْرِ الْمَشَقَّ And this has a context to it. That reward is in accordance with how much effort you put in, the hardship, the struggle. You can't capture that with just the output. You're getting away from things being done for you and wanting to do more for the sake of Allah Subhanu Wa Ta'ala, and actually looking forward to every single moment of effort that you put forth for the sake of Allah Subhanu Wa Ta'ala. And when we talk about the transition of scholarship and ilm, I don't care how intelligent these things become, we will always have the sanad, we will always have the chain amongst us, where we narrate from this person, from that person, from that person. Where people memorize the Qur'an, because the Qur'an is meant to be stored in our hearts and our minds. Where knowledge acquisition is through that proper transfer. And so as Muslims, we look at how Allah Subhanu Wa Ta'ala rewards us for the effort itself. And so when people talk about resisting a culture of dependence, so you have to get into Boy Scouts and go out and know how to do things for yourself, and they talk about it purely from a worldly framework, we look at it from the akhira incentive as well, from the hereafter incentive as well. That we love to do for the sake of Allah Subhanu Wa Ta'ala, and we understand that the process itself is rewardable, and that Allah Subhanu Wa Ta'ala will bless us for every moment that we struggle in His path, not incurring unnecessary hardship, but still doing the deeds that are necessary for our salvation, and finding joy in everything that we do for the sake of Allah Subhanu Wa Ta'ala. So the scholars mention here this ibadah of swimming, this ibadah of horseback riding, this ibadah of archery, this ibadah, this act of worship, of taking care of yourself,
of knowing how to do, and knowing how to acquire, all so that you can use those things for the benefit of mankind and for the sake of Allah Subhanu Wa Ta'ala. So clearly when we talk about this from an ethical perspective, dear brothers and sisters, do not substitute ajr for convenience always. You need to do these things so that you can find, bi'idhnillahi ta'ala, the reward from Allah Subhanu Wa Ta'ala, and that's going to give us, bi'idhnillahi ta'ala, the spiritual resilience, and who knows, you know, when you read about the Day of Judgment and the signs of the Day of Judgment, and you read about the way that things are reduced back to a very rudimentary way of living, that the technologies that people have developed fail them, and ultimately people go back to their fundamentals. It may be that this spiritual resilience that Allah has put inside of us as Muslims, in our ummah, that we still insist on doing the manual things for the sake of Allah Subhanu Wa Ta'ala, actually gives us a trajectory of success in the future, while still learning the beneficial technologies and finding ways to put guardrails on them and develop, insha'Allah ta'ala, our future with ilm, because we are an ummah of literacy and illiteracy at the same time. We're an ummah that promotes literacy, that promotes knowledge, but also finds benefit in each and every single person, and in each and every single deed that is done for the sake of Allah Subhanu Wa Ta'ala, and I'm going to end with two things here, insha'Allah ta'ala, as well, when we're talking about AI, and we're talking about robots, and you're seeing these videos of things that are dancing around in these factories that are so much superior, or so much more superior, or seem superior to human beings. So let me actually put this out there, the world is not going to end by robots. As Muslims, we believe in alamat al-sa'a as the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam gave it to us, the stages of the unfolding of the Day of Judgment, and so the Day of Judgment
will come as Allah and the Messenger Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam has said. And so all of these signs that happen will still come to pass. But a lot can happen from now until then. And so we have to have that constant ethical framework to where we're approaching these things and saying, how do I make the most of this situation, and how do I insist on still being a human being in this world as it is today? So insisting upon righteousness, and I don't believe for a moment that dajjal is a robot, but I do believe that al-Masih al-Dajjal will use all forms of dajjal and deception that are available to him, and Allah knows what tactics of deception are going to be available to him at the time. I don't believe that ya'juj and ma'juj are being produced in Silicon Valley. I believe in it as Allah and the Messenger Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam spoke about it. That's how we are as Muslims. So I understand the doom and gloom as well. But Allah has given us something to ground ourselves, bidnillahi ta'ala, and the last thing I'll say here is your Lord is precise. Your Lord is precise. And Allah is reflecting on how these permanent values exist in the Qur'an, even with worlds that are so unfamiliar to the companions of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. You know, one of the greatest fears that they're talking about with this technology is fake news. You can impose voices on people, you could literally take a person and make them say something that they're not saying at all, and so bad faith actors are going to use these technologies to promote more chaos, more turmoil. And even the psychological effect, even if you know that what you're looking at is not real, but even the psychological effect of seeing a trusted person saying something so horrible, of seeing images and videos put together, it erodes you psychologically and emotionally and spiritually. And you think about what that is, even today, subhanAllah, even today, the deception that exists, right,
of the fake news industry outside of the Muslim community and inside the Muslim community, putting images out of context, words out of context, pasting videos and words so that you can create things. What does Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala say? فَتَبَيَّنُوا Verify your information. Go to the source. Always go to the source. And what does Allah say? أَن تُصِيبُوا قَوْمًا بِجَهَالًا Because otherwise you might hurt someone unknowingly. فَتُصْبِحُوا عَلَى مَا فَعَلْتُمْ نَادِمِينَ And then you will end up regretting what you have done. Going back to the source. So not trusting the technologies or the information as it arises, going to the source of that information and verifying it. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala protect us from hurting ourselves or from hurting others. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala allow us to make the most of what is around us. And may Allah Azawajal reward us for our efforts and make our outputs beneficial to us in this dunya and the next. اللهم أمين أقول قولي هذا وأستغفر الله للكم ورسالة المسلمين فاستغفروا إنه الغفور الرحيم الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله وعلى آله وصحبه ومن ولاه بنا لا تآخذنا إن نسينا أو أخطأنا ربنا ولا تحمل علينا إسرًا كما حملته على الذين من قبلنا ربنا ولا تحملنا ما لا تاقت لنا به واعفوا عنا واخفر لنا وارحمنا أنت مولانا فانصرنا على القوم الكافرين وصلى الله وسلم وبارك على نبينا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين وأقيم الصلاة Al Fatiha
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