Richard Robertson, B'nai Brith Canada Director of Research and Advocacy, holds up an Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents in Canada during a press conference in Ottawa on Monday, May 6, 2024. B'nai Brith Canada flagged the issue of AI-generated hate content in a recent report on antisemitism. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Chris Tenove, assistant director at the University of British Columbia’s Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, said hate groups, such as white supremacist groups, "have been historically early adopters of new internet technologies and techniques." The report says last year saw an "unprecedented rise in antisemitic images and videos which have been created or doctored and falsified using AI."
The organization's report also says AI has "greatly impacted" the spread of propaganda in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. Jimmy Lin, a professor at the University of Waterloo’s school of computer science, agrees there has been "an uptick in terms of fake content...that's specifically designed to rile people up on both sides."
But Lin said there are ways of jailbreaking AI systems, noting certain prompts can "trick the model" into producing what he described as nasty content.