“Trust Me, I’m an Algorithm?”: WISE Research and Policy Dialogue Explores AI, Disinformation, and Higher Education

The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), an initiative of Qatar Foundation, hosted a research policy dialogue titled “Trust Me, I’m an Algorithm? AI, Disinformation, and Higher Education,” organized in collaboration with Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Northwestern University Qatar (NU-Q), and Siren Associates. The dialogue was anchored in an original study, “Fortifying Education in the Age of Disinformation”, conducted by WISE, HBKU, and NU-Q, whose research findings and recommendations form the foundation of the strategic framework.

Delivering the opening remarks, Dr. Asyia Kazmi, OBE, CEO of the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), underscored the imperative of addressing AI and disinformation in higher education, stating, "From the frontlines of teaching to the policy tables of higher education, AI and disinformation are reshaping the realities we face. Our research report highlights three priorities: understanding how students and faculty engage with AI, addressing language model blind spots in detecting harmful discourse, and committing to a decade‑long effort to strengthen information literacy. By uniting innovation with evidence, higher education can harness AI’s promise while building the resilience societies urgently need."

Moderated by Sopiko Beriashvili, Research and Policy Lead at WISE, the discussion highlighted findings from WISE’s research study about disinformation in higher education settings. The central question driving the study and conversation is “How do we keep out institutions epistemically honest when AI can manufacture plausible falsehoods at scale. What makes the study distinctive is its Qatar-centered perspective and one of the first study focusing on the Arab world.

Presenting findings from the WISE research report “Fortifying Education in the Age of Disinformation,” Dr. Georgios Mikros, Professor  of Digital Humanities at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), emphasized: "Our research examines how AI and misinformation intersect across institutions, society, and national contexts. By engaging students and faculty directly, we identified both risks and opportunities and outlined practical steps to strengthen digital and critical literacy so higher education can respond ethically to the rapid spread of AI‑driven disinformation."

The study is distinctive in its ambition to move beyond reactive responses, offering instead a proactive, evidence-informed, and human-centric framework. Central to its philosophy is the principle that AI adoption, online discourse quality, and information resilience are not separate challenges but deeply interconnected facets of a single, systemic transformation — and that addressing them effectively requires a "human-in-the-loop" approach, where technology provides scale and data, but trained people retain consequential judgment.

Organized as a comprehensive ecosystem — moving from understanding the problem, to designing solutions, to implementing them at scale — the report puts forward three interconnected recommendations. The first, Institutional Foundations, is grounded in an in-depth case study of AI adoption at HBKU, examining how students and faculty perceive, use, and are governed in their interactions with AI. The second, Healthy Digital Discourse, translates these insights into practical tools, including a curated Arabic toxicity dataset and a bilingual digital literacy platform, to help sustain respectful and informed academic communities online. The third, National Resilience, proposes the Haqiqatar framework — a ten-year national strategy for building information resilience and media literacy in alignment with Qatar's long-term education and innovation goals.

The dialogue positioned higher education at the center of a fast‑moving challenge: how to responsibly integrate AI while strengthening society’s defenses against disinformation. Serving as a bridge from research to policy, the event explored practical pathways to ensure innovation is matched by resilience in an era of rapidly evolving information risks. Attendees also took part in an immersive simulation led by the CEO of SIREN Associates, Jihad Bitar, experiencing the rapid escalation of AI‑generated disinformation narratives across social media channels, which provided them with a deeper, firsthand understanding of the complexities involved in safeguarding the educational landscape.

Speaking on the immersive simulation “Navigating the Information Battlefield,” Dr. Marc Owen Jones, Associate Professor of Media Analytics at NU‑Q, highlighted the power of experiential learning: "The simulation showed how AI can amplify disinformation in real time. Just as my students learn through gamified role‑play, participants saw how narratives are created, spread, and challenged, an essential step in building resilience."

Commenting on what is needed to sustainably support higher education in the age of algorithms, Dr. Wajdi Zaghouani, Associate Professor in Residence at Northwestern University in Qatar (NU‑Q), said: "As we embrace AI, we must not overlook its ethical, human, and cognitive impacts. Sustaining higher education in this era requires protecting core skills like writing and critical thinking, while addressing new risks such as overreliance and addiction to AI tools. Building digital citizenship and resilience is essential if students are to thrive in the age of algorithms."

To read the full WISE research study, please visit wise-qatar.org.