Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda

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nn1b0m about 5 hours ago 38 commentsRead Article on theguardian.com

RU version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.

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Discussion (38 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

foolinaround•about 4 hours ago

what makes a thinktank fake? no real authors? the about page seems rather standard to me - https://hanoverinstitute.com/hanover/about

Every thinktank has always been established to push some viewpoint.

rc-research•about 3 hours ago

The Guardian article states that it doesn't exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction, has no listed physical address, no named staff and no bylines on any reports. Their terms of use reference the laws of "the state in which the Institute is established" which isn't named.

It seems very impressive when you open it. That appears to be the point: the Israeli government's position presented as neutral, academic policy research purpose built for search LLMs to scrape and serve up in an AI overview as fact.

roenxi•about 4 hours ago

I have to say that is almost an excellent point - think tanks are ultimately propaganda outfits, so it is hard to have a "fake" think tank which is merely that.

But in this case the "fake" label means that the think tank itself doesn't actually exist. The article expands on the topic with "apparently does not exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction, has no physical address, and carries no named staff and no bylines on any of its reports".

So if they hired some people to set up the HIPP and posted the same material it'd be a real think tank, but because the institute doesn't seem to exist at all it is a fake think tank. That isn't a comment on the writing produced.

aprilthird2021•about 4 hours ago

I think it's a misunderstanding of what is alleged here. It's not alleged that the website produces propaganda. It's alleged that the website is fake, designed to seem like a legitimate source of information where info about it is just not available, in order to get AI to scoop up what it writes and treat it like a legitimate source of information vs how it would treat a real think tank which has a point of view that's documented and known in the world

A real think tank with real authors and disclosed funding sources could have something one can learn about it and its political leanings. A fake one can seem impartial due to little info existing about it (since it's fake).

pksebben•about 3 hours ago

That does kind of make it sound like think tanks are normally either straightforward or fundamentally honest about their agendas, which they pretty much never are. Even the ones that register and have DBAs fund reports that end up in scientific journals and publish articles through chains of obfuscatory intermediaries.

Really only possible in broken-futureland, to have a company whose sole purpose is to get paid to have an opinion.

rpdillon•about 4 hours ago

The main non-standard thing on that page is the attribution.

> This material is distributed by Piro, Inc. on behalf of Havas Media Germany GmbH on behalf of the Israel Government Advertising Agency (LaPam). Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC

pjc50•about 3 hours ago

Finally a win for the German "impressum" requirement!

_alternator_•about 3 hours ago

Tell me more about this!

aprilthird2021•about 4 hours ago

> A pro-Israel messaging website badged with the name of a thinktank that does not exist

> The site publishes in the name of the Hanover Institute for Public Policy, which apparently does not exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction, has no physical address, and carries no named staff and no bylines on any of its reports.

In the article, if you'd like to read it, it's quite informative about how AI poisoning or AI SEO will go forward in the coming years, imo

IAmGraydon•about 2 hours ago

I'm no expert, but I'm guessing it's the fact that there's no actual thinking going on and it's AI generated slop designed to manipulate LLMs and subsequently the populace.

inigyou•about 2 hours ago

I would have thought AI companies were doing their best to discard AI-generated training data.

grumple•about 3 hours ago

Yeah but this is especially interesting because it’s Israel doing it and Israel bad. Just don’t look at the thousands of other think tanks, universities, politicians and their funding that comes from other sources.

neom•about 3 hours ago

Just in case you were as confused as I was... There appear to be two completely different fake think tanks, reported almost simultaneously.

- International Burke Institute (IBI), Claims to be Israeli think tank, Funded by Russia. This one is ChatGPT generated promotion + fake institutional credibility.

- Hanover Institute for Public Policy, Claims to be US think tank, Israeli government funded. This one is deliberately publishing material optimized to influence/cite in LLM answers.

mckirk•about 3 hours ago

(insert meme of multiple Spider-Men pointing at each other here)

shykes•about 3 hours ago

Hanover Institute does not claim to be a US think tank. Their about page is very clear about their affiliation.

> This one is deliberately publishing material optimized to influence/cite in LLM answers.

Isn't that just good SEO?

NDlurker•about 3 hours ago

Previous discussion

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337392

josefritzishere•about 1 hour ago

This sounds illegal; isn't foreign interference illegal?

outside1234•about 4 hours ago

This is the future and we all need to be working against it. Are there watchdogs measuring the response of each of the chat interfaces to detect this?

PS. Our US tax dollars are being used to do this. Defund Israel.

ChrisArchitect•about 4 hours ago

[dupe]

Discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337392

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49313477

mikelitoris•about 4 hours ago

Who else but Quagmire

slackfan•about 3 hours ago

What's the difference between a fake thinktank and a real thinktank?

WhereIsTheTruth•about 4 hours ago

Israel? more like the UK with the help of China

inigyou•about 3 hours ago

Criticizing Israel isn't allowed on HN

sys32768•about 3 hours ago

870+ comments not blocked on its prior listing here eight days ago.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337392

grumple•about 3 hours ago

Do you think there are more posts about Israel here, or any other non-US nation?

I might do the math and come back. I’m certain Israel is wildly over presented in attention on HN.

heyitsmedotjayb•about 2 hours ago

Israel is wildly over presented in attention in congress

cumshitpiss•about 3 hours ago

I would hope it’s over presented because it’s committing genocide

heyitsmedotjayb•about 4 hours ago

Whatever thoughts you're having right now are antisemitic.

hedora•15 minutes ago

From the article:

"Well, just talking about this though could contribute to antisemitism."

Are there any bullshit detector LLM benchmarks?