alt Hacker NewsWhile this applies to many conflicts, it is very pronounced in I/P specifically. I find it a bit ironic that the author picked this example where, for almost any individual event or date in its history that seems particularly horrible or evil, one needs only to go back a few years to get a very different impression of the conflict.
While the author didn't make proper use of it, this is actually the best example of the articles point.
This is because I/P is sufficiently complicated and brutal that for any involved party X (Arab countries, Israel, Palestinians, Britain...), an interested party can make party X seem "inhuman, clearly we should defeat X anywhere we find them" to someone not previously informed on the topic.
So even if we don't select the evidence, or even select the date, but just selectively amplify, propaganda about it works just fine, across different media. The LLM news here is that as a media, LLMs transform biased background knowledge into eloquent confident _and tailored_ arguments for the bias, like a suave but motivated news anchor that is able to converse individually with _every listener_.
Because for all X, someone _is_ already amplifying the message "hate X", the main outcome of LLMs+Propaganda is not hate for a specific X, but just more hate.
And the solutions? The authors' ledger+timeline+blame+semantic checks are not a bad place to start.
For me, the core is that often the enemy we can and should defeat is not people, it is memes, like "hate _". LLMs (among other effects, good and bad) whitewash memes, and we all better be prepared to defend ourselves against their influence.