Israel is heading into an election unlike any it has held before. Foremost is the question of false information. This is not new. Neither have politicians suddenly discovered how to manipulate voters. But artificial intelligence is beginning to change both the information we are being shown and the way we decide whether to believe it.

A new survey conducted by the Geocartography Group for the Israel Internet Association (ISOC-IL), an independent non-profit organisation that conducts research and policy work on Israel’s online environment, found that 71% of Israeli internet users surveyed said they frequently or occasionally encounter false election-related information. Some 56.8% reported encountering fake or impersonating accounts, while 48.2% said they frequently or occasionally encounter AI being used to harm or defame someone.

The survey was conducted in July among 1005 Israeli internet users aged 18 and over, using a representative sample of the country’s Jewish and Arab populations.

But the statistic that interests me most isn’t how many Israelis say they have encountered false information. It is how many of us may now turn to technology to help decide what to believe.

In a separate survey published earlier this year, the ISOC-IL found that one in four Israelis was considering using AI tools or another online service to help inform a voting decision.

The Times of Israel has already explored what that might mean. In June, it reported on an experiment in which 26 simulated Israeli voters questioned five leading AI chatbots about their political choices. The researchers examined ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Grok and Gemini and found significant differences in the information and recommendations they produced depending on the model, the voter persona and the way the question was framed.

But there is a bigger question here than whether ChatGPT, Gemini or another chatbot might nudge an Israeli voter towards one party rather than another. What happens when we increasingly rely on AI to help us make sense of an information environment that is itself........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)