In January, AI and Faith welcomed Mifrah Hayath to the organization as a Contributing Fellow. Mifrah is a researcher working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, law, and bioethics, focusing on how emerging technologies reshape moral authority, legal responsibility, and consent in medicine.
How would you describe your experience with AI?
My experience with AI is grounded in my academic work in bioethics, health law, and AI governance, particularly through my Master of Bioethics at Harvard Medical School. My Capstone project, Regulating Artificial Intelligence Through the Lens of Idolatry: A Religious Bioethics Perspective, examined the ethical risks of treating AI systems as authoritative decision-makers in healthcare and reproductive medicine. The project explored how concepts from religious ethics can help clarify the moral limits of delegating life-shaping decisions to algorithmic systems, and how law and policy must respond to preserve human responsibility and accountability.
In parallel, my research focuses on the legal and ethical implications of AI in healthcare, including AI-assisted reproductive technologies, clinical decision-making systems, and emerging technologies such as embryo selection and artificial gestation. I examine questions of liability, informed consent, and accountability when AI systems influence medical outcomes, and how existing legal frameworks must evolve to address these challenges.
Beyond my academic research, I have also been involved in AI governance education through the AI Safety Initiative at Georgia Tech, where I first participated as a fellow and now serve as a facilitator, teaching students about AI risk, policy, and ethical responsibility. Overall, my experience with AI is centered on understanding its broader ethical, legal, and societal implications, particularly in contexts where it intersects with human health, autonomy, and moral decision-making.
How would you describe your faith background?
I am Muslim, and my faith has profoundly shaped how I understand ethics, responsibility, and justice. One verse from the Qur’an that has always stayed with me is: “O you who believe, stand firmly for justice, as witnesses for God, even if it be against yourselves, your parents, or your relatives” (Qur’an 4:135). This verse captures what I see as one of Islam’s most powerful ethical commitments—the obligation to uphold justice even when it is difficult or personally costly.
I have always appreciated the intellectual and scientific spirit of Islam. The Qur’an repeatedly encourages reflection on the natural world and the pursuit of knowledge, which historically helped inspire scientific inquiry across fields such as medicine, astronomy, and mathematics. This emphasis on learning and intellectual responsibility resonates deeply with my own academic path in bioethics and law.
At the same time, I am drawn to the Qur’an’s poetic nature. Its language speaks not only to reason, but to moral imagination, reminding humans of both their creative potential and their ethical limits. For me, Islam provides a framework that integrates intellectual curiosity, moral accountability, and a deep commitment to justice. These values continue to guide how I approach emerging technologies such as AI, especially when they affect human dignity, responsibility, and the governance of life itself.
What led to your interest in the intersection of AI and faith?
My interest in the intersection of AI and faith began in childhood, when I would watch religious debates and lectures with my family. I was particularly inspired by Dr. Zakir Naik, a Muslim physician whose work focused on comparative religion. What struck me most was his ability to engage deeply with multiple religious traditions while also emphasizing Islam’s compatibility with scientific reasoning. His approach demonstrated that faith and intellectual inquiry were not in conflict but could instead strengthen one another.
Watching these discussions shaped how I learned to think critically, analytically, and with a willingness to ask difficult questions. I became fascinated by how religious traditions addressed questions of creation, knowledge, and human responsibility and questions that now feel newly relevant in the age of AI.
As I later began studying bioethics and health law, I saw that AI was not simply a technical tool, but a system increasingly involved in decisions that carry moral weight, particularly in healthcare and reproduction. This raised questions that felt deeply familiar to the ones I had encountered in religious discourse: Who has authority over life-altering decisions? What are the limits of human creation? And how do we ensure justice and accountability when power is delegated to non-human systems?
My early exposure to religious debate taught me to see ethical and scientific questions as interconnected rather than separate. That foundation ultimately led me to explore how faith traditions, particularly Islam, with its strong emphasis on knowledge, justice, and moral accountability, can help guide how we develop and govern AI responsibly.
Why are you involved with AI and Faith?
I am involved with AI&F because I believe faith perspectives are essential to building a more complete and responsible understanding of AI’s role in society. Much of the current discourse around AI is driven by technical and economic considerations, but questions of meaning, moral responsibility, and human dignity are equally important.
Faith traditions offer centuries of reflection on human limits, moral authority, and ethical responsibility. These perspectives can help ensure that AI development remains aligned with human values rather than displacing them.
AI&F provides a space where these conversations can occur in a serious and thoughtful way. It allows scholars, technologists, and faith leaders to engage collaboratively in shaping ethical frameworks that reflect both technological realities and deeper moral traditions.
How does AI and Faith affect your work outside the organization?
AI&F directly informs my academic and legal research. My work focuses on how AI reshapes legal responsibility, informed consent, and ethical accountability in medicine and reproductive technologies. Engaging with faith-based perspectives has helped me develop richer frameworks for understanding these issues, particularly in contexts where law and technology alone cannot fully address the moral stakes involved.
It has also influenced how I teach and communicate about AI governance. I encourage students to think not only about technical risk and policy, but also about deeper questions of moral responsibility, human agency, and the ethical limits of automation.
More broadly, it has strengthened my commitment to interdisciplinary dialogue, bringing together legal, ethical, technical, and religious perspectives to address complex challenges posed by AI.
What open problems in AI are you most interested in?
I am particularly interested in questions related to moral and legal responsibility in AI-mediated decision-making. As AI systems increasingly influence healthcare, legal processes, and reproductive decisions, it becomes unclear who is accountable when harm occurs. Existing legal frameworks are not well equipped to address these questions.
I am also interested in the problem of moral delegation and how and why humans increasingly defer to algorithmic systems as authoritative decision-makers. This raises concerns about autonomy, responsibility, and the erosion of human moral agency.
Another important open problem is opacity. Many AI systems operate as “black boxes,” making it difficult for users, clinicians, and regulators to understand how decisions are made. This undermines informed consent, trust, and accountability.
Finally, I am interested in how AI reshapes our understanding of creation, authorship, and human uniqueness, questions that are deeply philosophical and theological, but increasingly relevant in a world where machines participate in generating knowledge, decisions, and even life-shaping outcomes.
