Supervisors: Professor Michael Biggs
Thesis title: Synthetic Canons and Algorithmic Authority: Generative AI and the Transformation of Collective Memory among Global Nizari Ismailis
Muhammad Ali is a DPhil in Sociology student at St Antony’s College, supervised by Professor Michael Biggs, and a Farhad Daftary Doctoral Scholar. His research focuses on generative AI and collective memory.
Raised in Karachi, he studied Social Development and Policy, with a minor in History, at Habib University, before moving to London for the Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities at the Institute of Ismaili Studies. He then completed an MPhil in Sociology of New Media and Culture at the University of Cambridge.
He previously served as a Graduate Research Intern at the Ismaili Special Collections Unit at the Institute, working on digital humanities and oral history projects.
His thesis examines how generative AI is reshaping collective memory in religious communities. It asks what changes when the past is generated by large language models rather than stored and retrieved, as in archives and other digital memory systems. It argues that LLMs produce synthetic canons: AI-generated accounts of doctrine and history that simulate authority while detached from scholarly traditions. Using the global Nizari Ismaili community as its case, it combines audits of model outputs, survey experiments and interviews to study how these accounts misrepresent, persuade and circulate.
Research Interests: Digital sociology; critical AI studies; collective memory; sociology of knowledge; algorithmic and religious authority; digital religion; Ismaili and Shi’i studies; misinformation and epistemic trust; digital humanities and archives
Previous Education: MPhil, Sociology of New Media and Culture, University of Cambridge. MA Islamic Studies and Humanities (SOAS, Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities (GPISH), Institute of Ismaili Studies, London). Undergraduate degree in Social Development and Policy (minor in History), Habib University, Karachi