Meet the pro-Israel lobbyist seemingly passing off AI-generated writing as her own
New analysis suggests that AI writes the bulk of We Believe In Israel’s output
Catherine Perez-Shakdam, the director of We Believe In Israel (WBII), appears to be passing off AI-generated writing as her own, across at least three publications and four books.
GPTZero, an AI detection tool, is “highly confident” that 96% of the articles Shakdam published on We Believe In Israel’s website are AI-generated. QuillBot’s line by line analysis reckons that 60% of the content is AI-generated, while Grammarly landed on 53%. A spot check of Shakdam’s side-projects, at the Forum for Foreign Relations and in the Times of Israel, returned similar AI detection percentages.
WBII was founded by Luke Akehurst, a pro-Israel lobbyist who is now a Labour Party MP. While the public facing output of WBII has devolved into slop, the organisation still briefs parliamentarians and holds sway inside the Labour Party. It was even recently granted access to a classified briefing. I asked Akehurst how WBII gained access to this document. He denied having “any involvement with We Believe in Israel since the General Election” and directed me to Shakdam, who did not answer my questions.
WBII is currently running multiple fundraising campaigns. One promises “new” and “original” pro-Israel booklets and “educational” materials. Using AI as a writing tool isn’t inherently unethical, but failing to disclose it to readers and prospective donors is.
As well as running a pro-Israel campaign organisation Shakdam is a prolific author. Detection tools suggest the hand of AI in four of the five books she’s published this year. Worse still, the organisation that Shakdam runs appears to have used AI to write a gushing review of her (apparently AI generated) book.
It is, without question, one of the most important books of our time.
Most of WBII’s articles bear Shakdam’s byline, but this book review doesn’t disclose an author. Neither is the conflict of interest declared. So who wrote it? I put this and other questions to WBII. They asked for more time to respond, so I postponed publication and set a new date. That deadline has now passed. They still haven’t responded.