Digital Transformation of the World Economy by AI: Some Moral, Ethical and Sharīʿah Concerns

The digital future of the world economy in the post-Covid-19 era will be shaped by an accelerated deployment of digital technologies in the private and public sectors with more active involvement of regulators and legislators. In recent years, ethical concerns have become more prominent and may limit machine learning models’ deployment in consumer-facing businesses, including financial services. A widely shared Islamic perspective is still to emerge. The paper draws attention to ethical issues embedded in data and autonomous decision models. This debate in the West could be enriched by more contributions from an Islamic perspective.