MBZUAI and University of Michigan Ann Arbor forge new collaboration in AI research

Mohammed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) is pleased to announce a pioneering collaboration with the University of Michigan Ann Arbor in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) research. This collaboration marks a significant milestone in the efforts of MBZUAI to establish strategic partnerships with leading AI institutions globally, with a particular focus on those in the United States.

The project collaboration between MBZUAI and the University of Michigan Ann Arbor was catalyzed and sponsored by the U.S. Mission to the UAE, which recognized MBZUAI’s commitment to fostering close relationships with top-tier AI institutions. U.S. Ambassador to the UAE Martina Strong stated, “The United States and the United Arab Emirates are leveraging their close and enduring partnership to pursue cutting-edge innovations through joint development of digital technologies and AI. The U.S. Mission to the UAE welcomes this pilot project, which brings to the UAE one of America’s leading research institutions in AI, the AI Lab of the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. Our growing academic and research collaboration represents the best of our bilateral commitment and partnership for a shared prosperous future.”

“We are thrilled to embark on this collaborative journey with the University of Michigan Ann Arbor,” said Dr. Eric Xing, President of MBZUAI. “This partnership exemplifies our commitment to advancing AI research through international cooperation, and we look forward to the insights and discoveries that will emerge from our joint efforts.”

Dr. Rada Mihalcea, the Janice M. Jenkins Collegiate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan and Director of the University of Michigan Ann Arbor’s AI Lab, embraced the invitation to collaborate with MBZUAI. Throughout the 2023/2024 academic year, University of Michigan Ann Arbor and MBZUAI research teams engaged in research on the cultural divide in AI. The result of these engagements is a dynamic foundation that promises to advance AI research and foster academic connections between the UAE and the United States.

As part of this collaboration, MBZUAI and the University of Michigan Ann Arbor are pleased to invite members of the AI community to attend the upcoming workshop titled “Bridging the Cultural Divide in AI: Analyzing Fairness, Bias, and Transparency across Cultures.” This workshop, scheduled for Monday, April 29, and April 30, will feature welcome remarks on day two by U.S. Ambassador in the UAE Martina Strong, underscoring the importance of international collaboration in AI research.

The workshop will include sessions led by prominent researchers from both institutions, exploring topics such as documenting unseen scripts of Indonesian languages, prompt sensitivity on cultural values, and cross-lingual learning for efficient adaptation in low-resource languages. Additionally, sessions will delve into the implications of AI representation in diverse cultural contexts, bias detection, and evaluation in natural language processing (NLP), and the capabilities of large language models for cultural commonsense understanding.

The workshop will continue Tuesday, April 30, with sessions addressing the cultural dimensions of AI, including discussions on why AI should not be WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic), building culturally aware visual datasets, and remarks by MBZUAI Provost Tim Baldwin.

Dr. Mihalcea added, “I am excited by our collaboration with MBZUAI, I believe together we can identify better solutions to how AI could be used to help with global challenges. By bridging cultural divides in AI, we aim for better societal representation in this quickly growing field, and ultimately a broad positive impact on the society as a whole.”