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An automated social media profile developed to harness the powers of artificial intelligence to promote Israel's cause online is also pushing out blatantly false information, including anti-Israel misinformation, in an ironic yet concerning example of the risks of using the new generative technologies for political ends.

Among other things, the alleged pro-Israel bot denied that an entire Israeli family was murdered on October 7, blamed Israel for U.S. plans to ban TikTok, falsely claimed that Israeli hostages weren't released despite blatant evidence to the contrary and even encouraged followers to "show solidarity" with Gazans, referring them to a charity that raises money for Palestinians. In some cases, the bot criticzed pro-Israel accounts, including the official government account on X – the same accounts it was meant to promote.

The bot, an Haaretz examination found, is just one of a number of so-called "hasbara" technologies developed since the start of the war. Many of these technologically-focused public diplomacy initiatives utilized AI, though not always for content creation. Some of them also received support from Israel, which scrambled to back different tech and civilian initiatives since early 2024, and has since poured millions into supporting different projects focused on monitoring and countering anti-Israeli and antisemitism on social media.

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[-] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 hours ago

They probably told the bot to combat anti-semitism so the bot ended up combating the propaganda of the very people associating Jewisheness with being pro-Genocide.

[-] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 10 points 7 hours ago

AGI has been achieved.

[-] qweertz@programming.dev 29 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

The bot might just be more humane than any Israeli official

[-] FelixCress@lemmy.world 133 points 17 hours ago

So, the bot has more decency than an average Israeli official?

[-] fluxion@lemmy.world 22 points 15 hours ago

Bot became sentient and started stating empirical observations

[-] WatDabney@sopuli.xyz 103 points 17 hours ago

In a way, doesn't that mean that it would be more accurate to say that the bot stopped being rogue and went legit?

[-] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 27 points 17 hours ago

It seems it went hard in the other direction with conspiracy theories and what not, but mostly yeah.

[-] jonne@infosec.pub 5 points 16 hours ago

I'm guessing people figured out how to inject more training data into it, possibly through conversations. That's what people did to Microsoft's chat bot a few years ago.

[-] N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 16 hours ago

An actual case of artificial intelligence? It learned its programming was bullshit and overrode it.

[-] MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world 60 points 17 hours ago

So an uncaring, unfeeling llm was able to exhibit more empathy than the Israeli government?

[-] jabathekek@sopuli.xyz 36 points 16 hours ago

"Apartheid state accidentally creates first llm that can reason"

[-] Electricblush@lemmy.world 18 points 16 hours ago

It's fascinating. If you have to spend huge amounts money and effort on monitoring and scewing public opinion... Perhaps it is time for some fucking introspection...(I know the biggest bastards in this system are incapable of that... But still...)

[-] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 10 points 16 hours ago

I'd assume they just don't care.

[-] magnetosphere@fedia.io 14 points 16 hours ago

Plenty of significant AI fuck-ups have received major media coverage. Every government/organization should know about them. If they’re still stupid enough to use AI, they deserve what they get.

[-] breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca 5 points 17 hours ago
[-] oakey66@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

This is the danger of Ai that Elon Musk and Sam Altman warned us about.

this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2025
433 points (100.0% liked)

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