(Courtesy of Touro University) Touro University hosted a virtual conversation about the role of artificial intelligence in increasing anti-Israel sentiment during the war with Hamas, and the cutting-edge efforts to use the same technology to combat antisemitism worldwide. The “Touro Talks” program was presented by Touro’s Jewish Law Institute.
Touro University President Dr. Alan Kadish moderated the discussion, which featured a panel consisting of prominent figures from the worlds of technology, diplomacy, and communal leadership. Such conversations are increasingly necessary, as there has been a surge of antisemitic sentiments online ever since the Oct. 7 massacre of Jews by Hamas, including, as Dr. Kadish noted in his introduction, the distribution of a video by, “of all people, Osama bin Laden, criticizing the United States and criticizing Israel,” which has drawn widespread support and sympathy for the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, from thousands in the U.S. and worldwide.
Dr. Kadish and the panelists detailed the various challenges in dealing with the amount of hate and disinformation that has been directed toward the Jewish community, both in person and online, after which they demonstrated how technology is being utilized to fight back against antisemitism.
“The overwhelming majority of Jews and non-Jews don’t understand the nature of the threat that we are facing,” said panelist Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman emeritus of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organization. “They don’t understand how virulent it is, how much it is poisoning the minds of otherwise intelligent young people that we see on college campuses falling for these lies and distortions.”
Technology’s Role in Spreading Misinformation
In explaining the role technology plays in disseminating misinformation about Jews or Israel, panelist Dr. Joel Finkelstein, the co-founder and chief science officer of the Network Contagion Research Institute, said that foreign regimes, extremist groups and other malign actors are often behind efforts to use bots to increase the number of times Israel is tied to damaging hashtags on social media, such as #Genocide, #Displacement, or #Colonialism. Artificial intelligence then exacerbates the issue by generating fabricated content about atrocities it claims, falsely, have been committed by the Jewish state.
“When these terms surge,” said Dr. Finkelstein, “we also see surges in mobilizations and protests, and we see surges in antisemitic attacks and mobilizations.”
Another panelist, Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Israel’s Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism, said we bear responsibility for allowing antisemitism to fester online long before Hamas’ brutal attack. Instead of putting pressure on legislators to hold social media companies accountable for their refusal to crack down on hateful posts, and even promoting them, we mostly shook our heads without taking action.
“All we’re doing is playing whack-a-mole on social media spaces,” she said. “Each one of us has a responsibility to hold to account those infrastructures that we have built or that we are members of for this moment in time to stop being reactive and begin to be proactive.”
Harnessing AI to Analyze Threats
Despite the potential for harm, Dr. Finkelstein said he was optimistic because AI can be harnessed to combat the very ills it is causing. For all it’s doing to endanger the international Jewish community, AI can be turned around and used to identify the sources of the many lies that are being spread. Technology can be developed to detect all the racist and antisemitic content in real time and enter the information back in a database, which can then be used to analyze its patterns and predict when a surge of hate-filled misinformation will be released.
Finkelstein is currently in the process of creating such a program, Shofar.ai
“And that changes the game,” he said. “If we’re able to map out the battlefield, we can present the decisive information to law enforcement agencies, and they can be more effective once they understand where threats are coming from.And they desperately need our help.”
At the close of the program, Dr. Kadish said that Touro was motivated to host the panel because it is committed to addressing critical issues facing the Jewish community and beyond.
“What’s happening on college campuses is not just antisemitism, it’s a paradoxical rebellion against Western liberal values,” he said. “We’ve got to continue at this extraordinarily dangerous time to incorporate what we’ve heard today to continue the fight and build a society that’s better.”
