By Alexa Sales '26
Dr. Mohammad Atari’s Culture and Morality lab explores culture and how it shapes moral values and norms, introducing new diverse methods in order to research and tackle social psychological questions. Aliah Zewail, a second year PhD student in the lab, focuses on the study of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within the context of culture and moral psychology.
A current project Zewail is working on involves identifying and mitigating Western biases that run rampant within the subject of morality coded into AI systems. When examining and testing large language models or LLMs (a knowledge base that uses a dataset of various texts and images to help AI better understand communication and make decisions), it was found that AI can infer certain moral values.
Additionally, Zewail's focus on LLMs and Western biases has allowed her to explore stereotypes by said LLMs in order to provide AI companies with proper insight to inclusively train new models.
Zewail’s recent projects have concluded with two key results:
- “There seems to be a cultural blindness within these large language models in that they think everyone has the same level of endorsement for moral values.”
- “They are more likely to underestimate the moral values of MENA [Middle East and North Africa] and Sub-Saharan African populations, painting them as having less moral concern than they actually do”
When looking at the overall moral concern in a country, Zewail’s evidence depicts larger discrepancies between what AI thinks versus actual reality. In the layout of the map below, it displays this research. The darker the color, the bigger the disparities, most notably the countries in MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Beneficially, these findings will allow companies to fix these discrepancies and biases, continuing to show advancement in the AI sphere. In addition to research in AI, cultural differences, and biases within the world, the Culture and Morality lab pursues interdisciplinary projects, giving the lab the ability to involve not just social psychologists but economists, computer scientists, and biologists.
When asked about her motivation to work in the lab, Zewail said, “I’d say it was a combination of personal and academic interest that motivated me to work with Dr. Atari. I’m half Egyptian, half Venezuelan, so I’ve always been interested in how our culture influences our psychology.”
Zewail’s biggest takeaway from her experiences so far is that the lab is like a family, a tight knit group of diverse thinkers. “It's very, very collaborative. Doctor Atari is always willing to connect us with people inside and outside the department. Something that I really cherish about the lab outside of that fact is that it's welcoming, is we celebrate each other's accomplishments.”
