Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is encouraging the spread of false information about the Holocaust, which threatens to fuel anti-Semitism and change our relationship with historical truth, according to a UNESCO report published on Tuesday.
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“If we allow these terrible truths about the Holocaust to be diluted, distorted, or falsified through the irresponsible use of artificial intelligence, we risk the rapid spread of anti-Semitism and the diminishing of our understanding of the causes and consequences of these atrocities.” The Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, noted in a press release.
The UN agency revealed this publication in partnership with the World Jewish Congress on the occasion of the International Day to Combat Hate Speech.
Generative AI models, such as ChatGPT, which generate text, images, sounds and videos from queries in everyday language, could invent events from World War II that never happened, UNESCO denounces.
Last February, Google's generative intelligence interface Gemini caused a sensation by producing images of black Nazis.
ChatGPT, which introduced generative AI to the general public when it launched OpenAI in 2022, for its part invented the concept of “Holocaust by drowning,” whereby the Nazis drowned Jewish people en masse in lakes and rivers during a world war. secondly. Pure inventions, with no historical basis, reminiscent of UNESCO.
The report notes that AI models also tend to oversimplify the story of the Nazi extermination of the Jewish people, and can even be vulnerable to hacking to convey Nazi ideology.
AI thus promotes conspiratorial thinking, according to Karel Frakpan, a Holocaust education specialist at UNESCO.
“This is a good example of how artificial intelligence, when applied to particularly difficult and controversial topics, can lead to a powerful erosion of democratic culture,” he told AFP.
He added that technology companies must show “more rigor, transparency and responsibility.”
“What is stated in this report is related to what is happening in the community. This has very real political consequences, he warned, referring to the rise of the far right in Europe.
However, UNESCO, noting that AI also enables the creation of more interactive educational tools for young people, calls on companies operating in this sector to implement ethical recommendations for AI.
