Dear John,

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) has the potential to transform how we work, write and play. These artificial intelligence tools are built to search vast pools of online data and create original content — they can answer academic questions, write song lyrics and create realistic yet fake photos. Like any new technology, GAI shows great promise and potential dangers.

Our ADL Center for Technology and Society (CTS) has monitored the emergence of these tools and the potential need for ways to keep them from magnifying online antisemitism, hate and harassment.

We asked over 1,000 people in the U.S. about the dangers of generative artificial intelligence. Seventy percent are concerned that GAI will make extremism, hate and/or antisemitism worse and substantial majorities are concerned that people will use the tools for criminal activity (84%), spreading false or misleading information (84%), radicalizing people to extremism (77%) and inciting hate and harassment (75%).

There was wide support for congressional efforts to mandate transparency and privacy, with 87% of respondents supporting this. Most respondents also wanted to hold creators of GAI tools responsible if their tools are used for illegal hate, harassment or extremism.

ADL has been at the forefront of fighting antisemitism, hate and harassment online for decades, and we know that the time to implement safeguards for new tools is BEFORE they start to cause harm to users, rather than waiting for technology to outpace existing guard rails. CTS also published “Six Pressing Questions We Must Ask About Generative AI,” urging policymakers and tech industry professionals to consider implementing safeguards to prevent the technology from being weaponized to sow disinformation or harassment or fuel extremism.

Speaking of hate and disinformation... we wanted to share a news insight with you in case it comes up in conversations you have on or offline.

This week, Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted about George Soros, comparing him to a fictional X-Men supervillain named Magneto, a character who is widely known to be Jewish and a Holocaust survivor. ADL and others criticized him for potentially emboldening extremists with this round of Soros-bashing.

Regardless of intent, Musk’s tweet was dangerous for helping feed into conspiracy theories about powerful Jews manipulating world events, so we were pleased that Musk ultimately did hear our concerns. He reframed his comments about Soros to be about specific policy disagreements rather than sweeping accusations of nefarious motives, and pledged to be ‘more thoughtful in the future.’

It feels like more challenges are emerging online each week, so constant vigilance is required to keep antisemitism and bigotry from finding new footholds. Thank you for joining ADL to Fight Hate for Good.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Greenblatt

CEO and National Director

ADL