AI chatbots are a potential danger for fact-based Israel advocacy

The New York Times reported:

Over the past three decades, a handful of products like Netscape’s web browser, Google’s search engine and Apple’s iPhone have truly upended the tech industry and made what came before them look like lumbering dinosaurs.

Three weeks ago, an experimental chat bot called ChatGPT made its case to be the industry’s next big disrupter. It can serve up information in clear, simple sentences, rather than just a list of internet links. It can explain concepts in ways people can easily understand. It can even generate ideas from scratch, including business strategies, Christmas gift suggestions, blog topics and vacation plans.

Although ChatGPT still has plenty of room for improvement, its release led Google’s management to declare a “code red.” For Google, this was akin to pulling the fire alarm. Some fear the company may be approaching a moment that the biggest Silicon Valley outfits dread — the arrival of an enormous technological change that could upend the business.

For more than 20 years, the Google search engine has served as the world’s primary gateway to the internet. But with a new kind of chat bot technology poised to reinvent or even replace traditional search engines, Google could face the first serious threat to its main search business. One Google executive described the efforts as make or break for Google’s future.

Imagine a future where you ask a question to a website and you get a well-formatted, professional looking answer - and it is all wrong.

ChatGPT is an amazing technology, but it bases its answers on, well, no one is really sure. I asked it to write a blog post about torture in Palestinian jails, and it mentioned a couple of specific examples of people tortured to death - and they were both completely wrong. But there was no link to where it got its information from, and it all sounded authoritative. 

This problem already exists to some extent even in popular search engines. Google and others will try to put a summary of the answer they think you want on top of the search page results, often but not always citing Wikipedia, which has its own issues with reliability.

But if AI replaces search, people will implicitly trust what they read as if it is engraved in stone. 

Give that AI typically takes its knowledge from the Internet, and that antisemites outnumber Jews by far online, the chances that an AI chatbot answering questions about Israel accurately are not too high. 

I asked, "After the UN partition vote in 1947, which side attacked the other first?"

ChatGPT gave a generic "both sides" answer: "After the United Nations voted in favor of the partition of Palestine in 1947, tensions between Jewish and Palestinian communities in the region escalated, eventually leading to the outbreak of violence and armed conflict. There were attacks by both sides, with Palestinian Arab militants and Jewish militant groups engaging in acts of violence and terrorism against one another. The conflict eventually escalated into full-scale war in 1948, with the newly formed state of Israel being invaded by several Arab countries. The war ended in 1949 with a series of armistice agreements, but the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians continued to flare up periodically in the ensuing decades."

It isn't exactly lying, but it didn't tell the truth either, that Arabs attacked Jews within hours of the vote.

When I asked, "Who are the most notorious terrorists in the Arab/Israeli conflict?", it answered:

Terrorism has been a significant factor in the Arab-Israeli conflict, with various groups and individuals on both sides of the conflict carrying out acts of terrorism against the other side. Some of the most well-known terrorists in the conflict include:

Yasser Arafat: Palestinian leader and founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was involved in numerous acts of terrorism against Israel.

Menachem Begin: Israeli politician and former Prime Minister of Israel, who was a member of the Irgun, a Jewish militant group that carried out numerous acts of terrorism against the British and Arabs during the 1940s.

Ahmed Yassin: Palestinian cleric and co-founder of Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist organization that has carried out numerous suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks against Israel.

Shimon Peres: Israeli politician and former Prime Minister of Israel, who was involved in the Stern Gang, a Jewish militant group that carried out numerous acts of terrorism against the British during the 1940s.

Abu Nidal: Palestinian militant and founder of the Abu Nidal Organization, which carried out numerous terrorist attacks against Israel and other Western countries.

It is important to note that terrorism is a highly controversial and inflammatory term, and different people may have different definitions of what constitutes terrorism. It is also important to recognize that the actions of individual terrorists do not represent the views or beliefs of all members of the group or community to which they belong.

This is again an attempt to "both sides" the question. Even worse, Shimon Peres was never a member of the Stern Gang. Where did it get that from?  We have no idea. And the last paragraph seems meant to blunt the idea of Hamas and Fatah as still promoting terror, even though they do, today.

There is a mindset, so to speak, that makes the AIs so seemingly human-like - but as we see, it ultimately reflects the thinking of the programmers as well as the data set that is chosen to be authoritative. Real objectivity is impossible, so naturally we will be seeing opinions that align with the overwhelmingly progressive thinking of most employees working on AI. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Survey shows antisemitism is widespread in the workplace, Jews are less likely to be hired

ResumeBuilders commissioned a survey of antisemitic attitudes of hiring managers and recruiters in the United States, and the results show that discrimination against Jews in the workplace is far more widespread than has been reported.

Nearly one third of the respondents, 32%, said antisemitism is "common" or "very common" at their workplaces.

Over a quarter of them, 26%, say they are less likely to move forward in the hiring process with Jewish applicants.

23% say they want fewer Jews in their industry, and an astounding 17% say that their leadership has told them to not hire Jews. 

The recruiters and hiring managers make assumptions on who is Jewish based on the applicant’s educational background (35%), last name (33%), past or current experiences with Jewish organizations (28%), and even their appearance (26%). But some also make their assumptions based on antisemitic criteria, saying their assumptions are based on the job applicant's  “voice,” “mannerisms,” or even saying “they are very frugal.”

When asked the reasons for not wanting to hire Jews, the answers were a summary of why people are antisemitic altogether. They included "Jews have too much power and control" (38%), "Jews claim to be the ‘chosen people’" (38%), and "Jews have too much wealth" (35%).

Is this discrimination coming from the political Right or the Left? The reasons given above seem to indicate it is the former, but that is not necessarily so.

The report notes that antisemitism is worse in industries that tend to be more politically liberal and that  people traditionally associated with Jews. 48% of hiring managers in both education and entertainment say antisemitism is common at their workplace, while 45% of hiring managers in business say antisemitism is acceptable in their workplace.

Moreover, Resumebuilder has had other surveys done recently of recruiters and hiring managers, and the results showed that they tend to lean left. 

More than one-third of hiring managers are more likely to interview applicants who list their pronouns in their resumes. Additionally, 52% believe their company practices “reverse discrimination” in hiring; 1 in 6 have been asked to deprioritize hiring white men and 48% have been asked to prioritize diversity over qualifications. 

It may be that the combination of companies demanding a more diverse environment and  hiring managers' latent antisemitic attitudes work together to provide a perfect storm against hiring Jews, with diversity being used as a way for the managers to justify their antisemitic practices. 

For comparison, studies show less than 10% bias against applicants who appear to be Black. Those results garner major headlines. 

It is unclear what the geographic scope of the survey was. Resumebuilder itself is geared towards jobs in the United States. (I requested more data.)

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Is the Brooklyn College "implicit bias training" on Yom Kippur really antisemitic?

The New York Post published on October 1:

Brooklyn College — which was recently ripped for campus anti-Semitism — scheduled “implicit bias training” for staffers on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year when many of the faithful do not work.

The training is mandated for those who serve on job search committees with one of the four Zoom sessions set for 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, the morning of Yom Kippur.

“This biases the process against observant Jews and secular Jews who typically attend services on this one day of the year.  Such Jews are afforded only three meeting opportunities, while all others are afforded four,” one Jewish professor said. “That sounds like implicit bias to me. Imagine, if that was done to a group that is viewed as a disadvantaged minority.”

A Brooklyn College spokesman said an additional training session was being offered on Monday.

“While classes are not held on Yom Kippur, the college is open on that day. In addition to these dates, staff or faculty can request an individual training session,” said spokesman Richard Pietras.

Is this antisemitic, or tone deaf, or not even an issue?

I am unclear whether the mandated training is to attend one of the sessions, or to attend all of them. If it is only to attend one session, and Jews still have a choice of three sessions (now four) )to attend, this does not sound like a problem at all to me - that choice of sessions should be plenty and from the Jewish perspective, the college is simply offering an additional session for those who have a free day on Yom Kippur and want to take advantage.

If attendance at all  sessions is mandated, however, then this is saying that any Jews who go to synagogue on Yom Kippur would have automatically failed the requirement. The Jewish Press makes that assumption but I am not sure where they got that from.  If I'm right, though, this is an artificial issue.

This Brooklyn College page that mentions the training indicates to me that only one session is needed for the mandatory training and it is normally offered three times a semester, meaning the Yom Kippur session is simply taking advantage of a day that non-Jews are probably free.

Brooklyn College has lots of problems with antisemitism. But when the charge is made, let's make sure it is warranted. 

Before the 1970s, Jewish students were routinely faced with mandatory exams on Saturdays or holidays. Those days seem to be mostly over. If the college offers a reasonable alternative for Jews, then that's all that should be required. In this case, Brooklyn College added the Monday session after the complaint, so Jews are not excluded at all even if they must attend all four sessions. 

There is plenty of real antisemitism to be dealt with. If my interpretation is correct, this is not one of those cases. And publicizing trumped-up charges of antisemitism will cheapen the cases when real antisemitism occurs on campus.

I think that the bigger issue is that Brooklyn College mandates classes that appears to insist that all white people - and presumably all "white-passing" Jews - are inherently, unavoidably and perpetually biased.  

Assuming that Jews are racist and oppressors really is antisemitic.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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MUST READ: Why the Schabas Report Will Be Every Bit as Biased as the Goldstone Report (Hillel Neuer)

This is the must-read article of the day, from The Tower. Excerpts:

For more than five years, the question of who exactly authored the UN’s 2009 Goldstone Report has been an enduring mystery. The report, written under the auspices of South African Judge Richard Goldstone, was a shocking 500-page indictment of Israel that accused its political and military leadership of deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians during the 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, and condemned the Jewish state as a whole for systematic and institutionalized racism, among other atrocities and abominations.

The answer to that riddle—which involves a radical Marxist law professor who held the equivalent of a general’s rank in the global lawfare movement against Israel, and more broadly, the UN department that selected her—has additional importance today because of the controversy swirling over the upcoming sequel to the Goldstone Report dealing with 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, which will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva on March 23.

Understanding who wrote the 2009 report—and how the establishment behind it remains in place—constitutes a direct rebuttal to the latest campaign by HRC backers and activist groups to salvage the reputation and legitimacy of the Goldstone II commission of inquiry into alleged Israeli war crimes.

[W]hat no one has understood or appreciated until now is the decisive role in the “process”—to use the words of the current HRC president—played by the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
To understand the OHCHR, one must understand the close relationship between two distinct but closely related UN entities. One is the 47-nation Human Rights Council, a political body heavily influenced by the vote-trading power and petrodollars of the Arab and Islamic states. It meets regularly three times a year for month-long sessions.

At the Arab states’ initiative, and with varying degrees of complicity by the EU and others, half of the resolutions passed by the HRC condemn Israel; there is a special agenda item against Israel at every HRC meeting; and the HRC has produced more emergency sessions and inquiries against Israel than any other country in the world.

The OHCHR is based nearby in Geneva. It is a thousand-strong bureaucracy that serves the council by carrying out its investigations, writing requested reports, staffing the council sessions, and acting year-round as its secretariat. From 2008 until this summer, the office was headed by High Commissioner Navi Pillay, who famously said that “the Israeli Government treats international law with perpetual disdain.”

Those who work in the OHCHR see themselves as an independent and neutral agency of the UN dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights. ....

From time to time, some OHCHR bureaucrats act on the margins, and only in small ways, to try to resist the more absurd and harmful dictates they receive from the political body. Yet when it comes to Israel, the position of the OHCHR under Navi Pillay has been more in line with the HRC than ever before. The most inflammatory and vitriolic notes from Arab speeches delivered to the council find their echo in the reports drafted by European nationals working for the OHCHR, many of whom are graduates of British universities and come from organizations like Amnesty International. If that weren’t enough, their work is subject to the scrutiny and constant pressure exerted by the 56-nation Islamic bloc.

Something that is vital to understand about UN commissions of inquiry is that, in practice, their commissioners don’t write the resulting report. The secretariat does. To be sure, some commissioners may provide directions and revisions—and it is clear that Schabas would have been more hands-on than others—but the bulk of the work is performed by a professional staff that can be comprised of human rights officers, forensics experts, and lawyers. As a result of this, chief-of-staff Marotta had the power to oversee the entire [Goldstone] project.

Thus, through [Francesca ] Marotta, senior officials within the OHCHR would have had the ability to exercise influence over the report—officials like Mona Rishmawi, a Palestinian lawyer who, prior to joining the OHCHR, had written articles comparing Israelis to Nazis.

The role of Marotta and the OHCHR was known at the time, if not fully appreciated. What a probe by UN Watch has now revealed, however, is that outside staff recruited by OHCHR included some of the most radical anti-Israel activists in the world.

One of the known staff members was Sareta Ashraph, whose job, as she described it, was to assist in the investigations, conduct interviews with victims and witnesses, and gather exhibits. Ashraph has also revealed that she was “responsible for drafting several chapters of the final report.”

When it comes to Israel, Ashraph is, to put it mildly, less than impartial. She was and remains a member of Amnesty International, one of the leading groups accusing Israel of war crimes in 2009, and which pushed for and defended the UN inquiry. She was the main organizer of a London lecture on behalf of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, featuring anti-Israel lawfare activists Raji Sourani (head of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights) and Daniel Machover. She also worked in the West Bank on “investigations of allegations of violations of international humanitarian law following ‘Operation Defensive Shield’ in 2002.”

What has not been known until now is that the other key figure on the staff was, through her substantial anti-Israel publications, activism, and leadership role in waging lawfare, exponentially more problematic—someone whose life’s dream was to prosecute Israelis for war crimes and who devoted several years of her life to making this dream come true.

Grietje Baars [is]a Dutch-born law professor who teaches in London. In contrast to Ashraph, who in the immediate aftermath of the report wrote in detail about her role in the Goldstone Report, Baars took pains to obscure her participation.

It is easy to see why. If people knew who Baars was and her role in the report, there would have been justified outrage at OHCHR for selecting her.

The world has the right to know the identities and roles of people involved in writing Goldstone II, to prevent a repeated of the biased staffers of Goldstone I.

[W]hen OHCHR hired her to work on the Goldstone Report, they must have known about Baars’ scholarship. They must have known that she was a self-described Marxist whose doctoral thesis was “a radical Marxist critique of law and capitalism,” and that her academic focus included “anti-occupation struggles and their intersection with other solidarity/liberation struggles” such as “anti-capitalism, anarchism, animal, and queer liberation.”

OHCHR would certainly have known of Baars’ prominent advocacy scholarship against Israel, such as her 2007 law journal article in the Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, entitled “Corrie et al. v Caterpillar: Litigating Corporate Complicity in Israeli Violations of International Law in the US Courts.” The article analyzes case law and suggests best practices regarding Palestinian lawfare efforts against Israel and the movement to boycott companies doing business with Israel, with numerous comparisons to the Nuremberg trials against the Nazis. Publications by Baars subsequent to her time on the Goldstone Report have also accused Israel of “war crimes, crimes against humanity, and grave breaches.”

But OHCHR must also have known that Baars was much more than a scholar: She was a hardcore anti-Israel activist who has risen to become a leading figure in the global lawfare movement—a worldwide campaign to erode Israel’s international standing through the misuse of the language and mechanisms of international law, with the goal of blunting Israel’s ability to defend itself by putting the country on notice that any measures taken against terrorists based among civilians will be put under an international microscope.

By 2009, Baars already had a disturbing track record of extreme hostility against Israel. Because of the sensitive nature of her position, OHCHR must have examined her resume and conducted a basic Google search, all of which would have revealed her prejudice and made it clear that prosecuting Israelis in international courts was essentially her life’s dream. In other words, that she was the very opposite of the impartial, neutral, and objective member of the secretariat envisioned under the UN Charter.

An email Baars sent to her activist colleagues as the Gaza conflict unfolded in December 2008—the war she would later investigate for the Goldstone Commission—preemptively declared that Israel was conducting a “massacre” in the territory and ranted about Israeli “lies we have to fight.”

Baars sent the email after receiving a purportedly leaked copy of guidelines for pro-Israel spokespeople responding to questions about the incursion. “These are the lies we have to fight to end the massacre in Gaza,” her email says. “This has been leaked from sources in Washington DC. Please study this and prepare a response as defiantly yet respectfully as you can do. This is easy to trash, but do so in a civil manner please. Outrage is our weapon, but respect is our salvation.”

Beyond what it says about the credibility of the Goldstone Report, Baars’ involvement raises serious questions about the impartiality of OHCHR, which filled the inquiry’s secretariat with a mixture of its own staffers and outside hires. Why has it refused to reveal the make-up of the secretariat, leaving the public in the dark except for a few names that have inadvertently leaked out?

There seems no question that Goldstone was duped. He never suspected that OHCHR, the UN agency in charge of providing him with professional staff support, had quietly embedded one of the world’s top anti-Israel lawfare strategists into the team. After all, only four years before, Goldstone had worked on another UN inquiry on the oil-for-food program. In that case, he was supported by a highly professional staff based in New York, with most if not all of them lawyers and experts hired from the outside. Goldstone assumed the Gaza inquiry would be the same.

But it was not the same. The culture of the Geneva-based OHCHR secretariat is known to be far more anti-American, anti-colonial, and anti-Israel than the one in New York. In his naiveté, Goldstone was blind to the prejudice and political agenda of his own bureaucracy. Indeed, there is not the slightest indication that Goldstone had any knowledge of Baars’ extremist activism. But OHCHR knew—and that is why they hired her.

What do we know so far about the actual staff members of Goldstone II? As in 2009, OHCHR refuses to respect the principle of transparency by revealing who is on the staff, even though this is common practice elsewhere, such as in the UN’s 2005 oil-for-food report.

I have seen this bias with my own eyes. When I met with the Schabas Commission on September 17, 2014 to personally hand them a written demand for Schabas’ recusal, there were only two staff members in the room, both of them from OHCHR’s Arab section, known as Middle East and North Africa: One was Frej Fenniche, a Tunisian who was a spokesman for the UN’s notoriously anti-Semitic Durban conference on racism in 2001. The other was Sara Hammood, a former spokesperson for the UN’s most anti-Israel committee. Hamood also worked as a “policy advisor on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory” for Oxfam Novib, where she wrote one-sided reports and joined others in critical statements against Israel. This was the initial staff of OHCHR, who were presumably involved in hiring the others.

The current staff—Schabas has mentioned that it is composed of “a dozen specialists”—includes Karin Lucke, OHCHR’s former coordinator of the Arab region team, and now listed as working for the UN in New York. Amnesty notes that the current team includes the OHCHR staff from “Geneva, Ramallah, and the Gaza Strip.” According to Geneva sources familiar with the probe, a number of the staff members are from the Arab world.
In summary, there is every reason to suspect that OHCHR has manipulated the staffing for Goldstone II just as it did in 2009.

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