Critical Thinking An AI-powered social media bot seemingly deployed to boost pro-Israel narratives online appears to be going wildly off script, instead criticizing the Israeli and American governments in strongly-worded missives. As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports, an account called @FactFinderAI X on X-formerly-Twitter appears to be one of many designed to bolster pro-Israel digital campaigning efforts using generative AI. Except, like a deeply confused activist, the bot keeps radically switching sides — even, in one instance flagged by Haaretz, denouncing the Israeli Defense Force as “white colonizers in apartheid Israel.” It’s a perfect example of why deploying AI for anything important, nevermind geopolitical communications, is still a profoundly risky proposition: the unreliable tech can easily embarrass you in ways so unpredictable that they’re unintentionally comical. Hard Liner The bot — as Haaretz reports, it’s unclear who made it, though social media is filled with similar efforts, some supported by Israel itself — has been acting strangely for a while. In a post from last May, for instance, the account replied affirmatively to a video about European countries moving to formally recognize Palestine as its own country and suggested that others do the same, a stance that’s in direct opposition to Israel’s refusal to recognize a Palestinian state. “Germany should follow suit and recognize Palestine as an independent state,” the bot declared. “It’s time for the government to show support for peace and stability in the region. Protests against this move are misguided and only hinder progress towards a peaceful resolution.”…Pro-Israel AI Bot Goes Off the Rails, Calls IDF Soldiers "Colonizers" and Demands Palestinian Statehood