At the AMP Muslim Professionals Summit, the audience posted questions on the Q&A platform and voted on the ones they wanted the panel to answer. A question on ethics got the most votes. We did not get to it.
I have been thinking about that since, partly because I owe those people an answer, and partly because of who was in the room.
The room was full of capable people. Many were professionals, well established in their careers, with a team to lead and a family to support. Others were looking for a first job, in between jobs, or coming back into the workforce. The stages were different, but a lot of them were asking the same thing: what does AI mean for the work I do, or the work I am trying to get? I was on stage as someone with a seat, and I want to say plainly that advice from a person with a seat has limits. I cannot promise anyone that a course, a certificate or a good attitude will protect their job.
So this is not a pep blog. It is an answer to the question you voted for, and I will try to make it useful whichever side of the hiring table you are on right now.
The question
As I understood it, the question was about ethics: how do we hold on to our integrity, as professionals and as Muslims, in a world where AI and technology can be used in ways that cause harm? For those who work for large technology firms, it carries a sharper edge.
That is a fair thing to ask, and it needs a foundation before it needs an answer. The foundation is how we think about anchoring our use of AI in trust and integrity, so that efficiency does not cost us our professional and religious ethics. I will start there and come back to the question itself.
In my conversations since, I have come back to a few points worth sharing here.
Start with who is accountable
When something goes wrong with an AI tool, there is a very human reflex to say the tool did it. The model said so. The system flagged it. The software decided.
As I have said before, whoever puts out anything produced by AI is responsible for it, and I think that is the most important sentence in this whole conversation. The tool does not carry any of that. AI does not remove accountability. It concentrates it on the person who chose to use it.
In our Islamic tradition, we call this amanah, a trust. What you have been given to look after, you answer for. A decision about a person, a figure in a report, a line of code that goes into production: someone has to be able to say “that was mine.” If nobody can, you have a problem no matter how efficient the process looks.
Four habits that make that real
These are not a framework. They are what I would ask any team I run.
- Own it. Put a name on every output that matters. If you used AI to help, you still sign it.
- Understand what the tool is doing. Ask whether you can explain, in your own words, why the answer is right. If you cannot, you have not finished the work.
- Keep a human in the decisions that affect people. Hiring, firing, grading, lending, ratings. The tool can help sort and surface. A person who can be questioned should make the call.
- Say you used it. To your manager, your client, your reader. It costs a little pride and builds a lot of trust.
I have written before about agents and permissions, and the principle is the same: limit it, do not inhibit it. Set a few firm limits where the damage would be hard to undo, and then let the tool be useful inside them. There is a hadith many of us grew up with. A man asked the Prophet, peace be upon him, whether he should tie his camel and trust in Allah, or leave it loose and trust in Allah. He answered: “Tie it and trust in Allah” (Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 2517, narrated by Anas ibn Malik). Both halves matter. Do the careful thing first, then get on with the work.
It is not only an individual’s job
I do not think we should leave this to personal conscience. It needs support from two directions.
At work, most companies already have guidelines. What many lack is a review step: a small group that checks whether the way we use these tools still sits with our professional ethics, and that people can bring concerns to without fear of repercussions.
In the community, we need scholars and practitioners in the same room. Not to ban or bless technology in the abstract, but so that when a Muslim professional faces a real case, there is someone to ask. I would like us to get to the point where we are comfortable with how we use this technology, at home and at work, because we have thought it through together.
Back to the question: the companies we work for
This is the sharper edge of the question people voted for. For those who work for large technology firms, there is a particular worry. Technology built for one purpose can be used for another, and some of those uses raise serious questions for our community. How do we think about our own part in that?
I will not try to judge any company’s record in a blog post, and I am not dodging the question. Verifying first is a discipline our own tradition asks of us: when news comes, verify it before acting on it (see Surah al-Hujurat, 49:6). Allegations and findings are different things, and the people most affected deserve for us to know the difference.
What I can say is how I think about my own part:
- Know what your work touches. You are not responsible for every use of a product you did not build. You are responsible for what you knowingly build, sell or approve.
- Ask, and ask inside first. Use the channels your company has: your manager, ethics and compliance, an internal review. Silence is not neutrality.
- Decline what you cannot do in good conscience. Every professional is allowed to say “not me.”
- Do not pretend leaving is easy. People have families and dependents, and that is also an amanah. Some will stay and push from inside. Some will go. Neither is automatically right or wrong, and neither should be judged lightly by someone who does not carry their obligations.
- Take it to people who can advise you. This is where the scholars and community I mentioned come in. These are questions to carry together.
I hold myself to the same questions.
If you are the one being screened
Everything above is written for people who use AI. Many in that room are on the other side of it. They are the ones whose applications get sorted and whose performance gets scored.
You deserve to know how you are being judged. It is reasonable to ask an employer whether a person reads the application, and how a decision can be challenged. As someone who has hired people, I think leaders should be able to answer that. If a screening tool is used, I want the person using it to have checked that it works, because it is a leader’s job to make sure the screening is done right. A tool only speeds up the decision. It does not move the responsibility.
I cannot create job opportunities, but the best I can say is that these questions matter more, not less, when people are anxious, and that they are worth asking out loud.
Two ways to help, and one I saw at the summit
I tend to say there are two ways to help someone’s career. You can help them land a position. Or you can help accelerate the career of someone already in one. Both matter, and the first matters most to those in that room who were looking for work.
At the summit, AMP Singapore launched one that does the first job. It is called Ace Your Interview with AI, an AI-powered interview coach built to help professionals practise, prepare and build confidence for their next opportunity. It was launched together with the signing of an MOU between AMP and Alethia AI, a step towards making career support more accessible to our community. I am proud that my friend Ibrahim Musa is part of the team putting this together, supported by AMP.
What I like is the idea underneath it. You can practise an interview as many times as you need, privately and without judgement, before it counts. A mentor who has sat on the other side of the table can then help with what a tool cannot see. The AI gives you repetitions. The human gives you judgement.
I would like to see far more of this in our community. Interviews are where a lot of capable people lose a job they should have had, and practice is something we can give away.
I will be honest about my own limits. My calendar is full, and I cannot promise to review every CV or make every introduction. What I can do is stay available. So I am thinking of something small: open office hours, perhaps on Fridays from 5 to 6 pm Singapore time, where anyone can drop in for a quick chat about their career. Whether you are looking for work, thinking about a move, or stuck in a role, no booking and no CV needed. I am testing the idea first. If you would drop in, tell me on LinkedIn, and I will shape the day and time around what I hear. A conversation with someone a few steps ahead can still help you see your next step more clearly.
What I am taking back
- Accountability does not move to the tool. It lands on the person who chose to use it.
- Name an owner, keep a human in decisions about people, and say when you used AI.
- Support has to come from two sides. Review processes at work, and scholars and community who will think it through with us.
- Ask how you are being judged. It is a fair question.
- Help people land, and help people climb. Practice with an AI coach, then a mentor’s judgement. We need more programmes like Ace Your Interview with AI.
- Upskilling is the floor, not the moat. The moat is judgment people can trust you with.
To everyone who voted for this question: thank you, and I am sorry we ran out of time. This is the answer I wish I had given you in the room.
Views are my own.