Israel funds fake think tank to manipulate AI chatbots
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- Hanover Institute for Public Policy published over 100 reports on Israel-Palestine since August 6, mimicking a credible U.S. think tank but created by a firm contracted by the Israeli government.
- Piro, Inc received $900,000 from the Israeli government to produce content engineered to influence LLMs, leveraging 'AI Story Optimization' to boost credibility with chatbots like Gemini and Claude.
- Daniel Rosenberg, co-founder of Piro, Inc, advertised on LinkedIn that his firm reverse-engineered how AI builds answers, ensuring client narratives dominate chatbot outputs.
- RS analysis found 11 of 12 Hanover Institute articles flagged as AI-written with high confidence by GPTZero, undermining claims of peer-reviewed academic research.
- NewsGuard analyst Alice Lee said the site’s design—generic name, layout, red-white-blue color scheme—perfectly mimics a legitimate American think tank to appeal to U.S. audiences and AI crawlers.
- Hanover Institute reports frequently cite Israeli government sources like the IDF and Ministry of Foreign Affairs while questioning UNICEF and other international bodies’ claims about Gaza.
Why it matters: This operation shifts how state influence campaigns work: instead of targeting people directly, Israel is seeding AI training data with curated narratives. With $900,000 invested and early evidence of chatbot adoption, this could reshape public perception at scale without disclosure of state authorship.
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