MCM participates at “The Future of Society in the Age of AI” Conference in Sharjah

We had the pleasure of participating in The Second International Conference on Applied Research in Humanities and Social Sciences titled "The Future of Society in the Age of AI." The conference took place at the University of Sharjah from February 10 to 12, 2026 and it featured an open discussion session with Nobel Prize winner in Literature Prof. Abdulrazak Gurnah. Participants explored AI's role in advancing humanities and social sciences research, highlighting emerging opportunities in this interdisciplinary field.

News Sharing in the UAE and AI's Dual Role

Mies AlZoubi, Vice President at HNW Equities, presented joint thesis research executed with colleagues Mohamed Abdelaal, Senior Editor at Sky News Arabia, and Amna Alaidaroos, Internal Communication Manager at Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI). Mies, Mohamed and Amna are our recent MCM programme graduates who defended their thesis titled “Why people press the “share” button? A comprehensive study of drivers behind online information sharing and the role of AI” with distinction. Their research analysed why individuals share news on social media in the UAE, including fake news, and how AI influences sharing behavior. Their study revealed that social media has evolved from a technical platform into a communal space for identity and belonging.

Researchers emphasised AI's dual role as both enabler and gatekeeper, amplifying cultural narratives while also providing fact-checking tools to prevent. UAE users approach AI critically, as support rather than authority, maintaining human judgment and human in the loop for contextual interpretation. This hybrid epistemology underscores shared responsibility for digital truth. The study challenges the dominant single-factor explanations of misinformation, advocating integrated frameworks that connect AI ethics, cultural identity, personal factors, and communication theory, particularly in multicultural contexts like the UAE where over 200 nationalities engage in high social media usage.

DeepSeek as Chinese Cultural Mirror

A second presentation from our MCM program was delivered by the Head of Programme Dr. Ivana Beveridge and it focused on how Chinese students use the Chinese large language model DeepSeek. The study emphasises that AI diffusion is not culturally neutral: while most existing research looks at technical usage patterns, it rarely examines the cultural logics that shape how AI is integrated into everyday communication and epistemologies. DeepSeek is approached as a cultural mirror, reflecting and reinforcing Chinese communication styles and epistemologies and drawing on Yin–Yang informed paradox lens and ideas of communication competence. The study suggests that students use DeepSeek to seek balance rather than confrontation, prioritising harmony, moderation, and face saving over individualised debate and disruption. AI is approached less as a tool to control and more as a relational presence and a supportive peer that helps refine structure and tone without replacing human intention or authorship.

The study also links these practices and the Chinese intellectual heritage to the technological design of DeepSeek itself, notably its Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture which embodies a collective, harmony oriented collective techno ethos, experienced as compatible with a pragmatic, context anchored view of knowledge.

AI in Urban Planning

In spirit of inter-departmental collaboration and advancing interdisciplinary research, we were joined by our colleagues from the department of Urban planning and Development. SUAD master students Ana Paola Stumpf Rodrigues, Muna Alharbi, Rawaq Alsahooly and Luis Miguel Merlano H., delivered presentations on benefits of AI use in urban planning, accompanied by Dr. Simone Safe, Head of master’s programme in Urban planning and Development - Urban Innovation and Sustainability (URBIS).