LONDON: A non-existent US think tank published more than half a million words of pro-Israel material in just nine days as part of an Israeli government-funded campaign designed to influence how artificial intelligence chatbots respond to questions about Israel and Gaza, The Guardian has found.
The Hanover Institute for Public Policy published 124 reports between Aug. 6 and 14, presenting them as neutral, academic-style research on contentious issues including allegations of genocide, war crimes, torture of Palestinian prisoners and the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.
The analysis by The Guardian revealed that there was no evidence that the institute existed as a legal entity in any jurisdiction. Its website listed no physical address, staff members or authors for its reports.
The “think tank” formed part of a wider, multimillion-dollar Israeli government-funded “Hasbara” campaign aimed at shaping online discourse and AI-generated responses as Israel seeks to counter its deteriorating international image amid the war in Gaza.
A contract involving Havas, one of the world’s largest advertising firms, and another company working on the campaign involved the deployment of websites and content intended to produce “GPT framing results” in chatbot conversations.
