Artificial intelligence is increasingly involved in how knowledge is produced, summarized, translated, and circulated. But what kind of knowledge does AI generate—and on whose terms?

In this episode, we explore the relationship between AI and the humanities, asking how data, language, institutions, and power shape what AI systems present as knowledge. Approaching AI through the lens of critical reading, the conversation treats AI not as a neutral or purely technical tool, but as a cultural and interpretive system—one that inherits assumptions, hierarchies, and exclusions embedded in its training data.

Through a reflective dialogue, the episode examines the difference between pattern and meaning, fluency and understanding, and speed and judgment. It considers how AI reshapes authority and trust, why critical interpretation remains essential in an AI-driven world, and how the humanities provide tools for reading AI outputs rather than accepting them at face value.

The episode also reflects on education, voice technologies, and the ethical stakes of using AI as a shortcut to answers instead of a prompt for deeper inquiry.

Reading the World | قراءة العالم takes one question at a time—carefully, clearly, and without oversimplification.

In the next episode, we turn to another question:
What happens when ideas travel from one language to another?

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Reading the World | قراءة العالم
A bilingual podcast (English and Arabic) exploring world literature, culture, and higher education as ways of understanding how meaning is produced, circulated, and contested.

Each episode takes one question at a time—carefully, clearly, and without oversimplification.

Follow the podcast to continue the conversation.

كثيرًا ما تُوصَف المعرفة بأنها «موضوعية» ومحايدة، منفصلة عن السياسة والسياق. لكن في العلوم الإنسانية، لا تُعد الحيادية نقطة انطلاق بقدر ما هي سؤال يحتاج إلى فحص.

في هذه الحلقة، نتأمل كيف أن كل فعل معرفي ينطلق من موقع محدد: لغة، وتاريخ، ومؤسسة. فما ندرسه، وكيف ندرسه، وأي الأسئلة تُعَد مشروعة، كلها قرارات غير بريئة، تشكّل فهمنا للعالم قبل أن ننتبه إلى أثرها.

من خلال أمثلة تمتد من الخطة الدراسية إلى الإعلام، والتقارير السياسية، والبيانات، توضّح الحلقة كيف تُنتَج المعرفة داخل علاقات السلطة، دون أن يعني ذلك اختزالها في الدعاية. فالمعرفة ليست زائفة بالضرورة، لكنها مُتموضعة، مرتبطة بسياقها وشروط إنتاجها.

تدعو الحلقة إلى قراءة العالم بعناية عبر طرح أسئلة أساسية:
ما الافتراضات الكامنة في الخطاب؟
وأي منظور يُقدَّم بوصفه عالميًا؟
وأي التجارب تُدفع إلى الهامش بوصفها «سياقية»؟

كما توضّح أن القراءة النقدية لا ترفض الخبرة، بل تتعامل معها بجدية كافية تتيح مساءلتها. ومن هنا تبرز أهمية العلوم الإنسانية، لا لأنها تقدّم إجابات سهلة، بل لأنها تعلّمنا كيف تُنتَج الإجابات أصلًا.

في زمن يختلط فيه التفكير النقدي بالتشكيك أو العدميّة، تذكّرنا هذه الحلقة بأن النقد ممارسة أخلاقية، وطريقة للبقاء مسؤولين أمام تعقيد الواقع.
فقراءة العالم تعني رفض الاختصارات، والبقاء مع الصعوبة وقتًا كافيًا لفهم ما الذي هو على المحك.

قراءة العالم | Reading the World
سؤال واحد، في كل مرة.

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Reading the World | قراءة العالم
A bilingual podcast (English and Arabic) exploring world literature, culture, and higher education as ways of understanding how meaning is produced, circulated, and contested.

Each episode takes one question at a time—carefully, clearly, and without oversimplification.

Follow the podcast to continue the conversation.

We often hear the phrase “objective knowledge”—neutral, detached, above politics. But in the humanities, neutrality is not a starting point; it is a question that critical reading helps us examine.

In this episode, we explore how every act of knowledge comes from somewhere: a language, a history, an institution. What we study, how we study it, and which questions are treated as legitimate are never accidental.

Using examples from syllabi, media narratives, policy reports, and data practices, the episode shows how knowledge is shaped through inclusion and exclusion—often long before we become aware of its effects. These processes do not occur outside power, yet this does not mean that all knowledge is propaganda. It means that knowledge is situated.

To read the world carefully is to ask:
What assumptions are at work here?
Whose perspective is treated as universal?
And whose experience is framed as “context”?

This episode argues that critical reading does not reject expertise. It takes expertise seriously enough to interrogate it. In a time when critical thinking is often mistaken for cynicism, the humanities remind us that critique is an ethical practice—a way of remaining accountable to complexity.

Reading the World | قراءة العالم is a bilingual podcast that takes one question at a time, inviting careful attention to how meaning, knowledge, and authority are produced.

In the next episode, we turn to another question:
What happens when ideas travel from one language to another?

Send us a text

Reading the World | قراءة العالم
A bilingual podcast (English and Arabic) exploring world literature, culture, and higher education as ways of understanding how meaning is produced, circulated, and contested.

Each episode takes one question at a time—carefully, clearly, and without oversimplification.

Follow the podcast to continue the conversation.