‘The Mind Behind the Machine’ is a unique book created by a revolutionary idea: posing a question to advanced and diverse Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools about the Arab thinker Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh; his life and career journey, as well as his vision, asking chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude to prepare a comprehensive analysis of their findings.
While these AI tools acknowledged in the book that they could not fully decode Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh’s mindset, they tried to outline his general attributes; a Palestinian refugee boy who grew up to establish one of the world’s largest knowledge empires, becoming one of the most influential figures shaping global societies.
Even after analyzing and reviewing vast archives of Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh’s work, including publications, speeches, interviews, articles, and all available data, the AI repeatedly acknowledged its inability to fully understand his mindset or uncover the motivations behind many of his decisions. It concluded, each time, that Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh exemplifies the profound distinction between AI and human genius.
The book also highlights that ethical standards were strongly present in all of Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh’s work, often leaving AI tools unable to explain his decisions. Many of his choices “transcend algorithmic logic” and do not conform to profit-and-loss reasoning.
Finally, the book shows that no matter how advanced AI becomes, it remains limited when faced with exceptional and extraordinary human models. Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh serves as such a model, showing that the human mind cannot be fully confined within an algorithm.

By Hassan Al Tamimi