Safer Internet Day is on 11 February this year. The theme is: 'Too good to be true? Protecting yourself and others from scams online'. Technology has made huge strides this year, especially in the field of artificial intelligence, but threats have come thick and fast.
AI dominated the national press at the end of January 2025. Headlines such as 'Chinese AI threat triggers $1 trillion market crash' followed an announcement that a Chinese company was offering DeepSeek at a fraction of the cost of its rivals.
This news coincided with coverage of Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January. The number of survivors grows smaller each year and Jewish organisations are determined to preserve their voices for posterity. In the past, this would have involved diaries, museum exhibitions, video clips and perhaps a hologram. Instead, it became an AI story.
A dark side of AI
Survivor Stories is funded by the USC Shoah Foundation. Researchers filmed interviews with 10 survivors, transcribed their testimonies and trained AI to match the answers to visitors’ questions. 'It’s a remarkable opportunity to talk to survivors forever and ever,' said Bruce Ratner, the museum’s chairman. 'Most survivors are in their 90s, and that’s why this is particularly important to do.'
This is a commendable project with authentic materials and memories. However, as with all technology, there is a darker side. That same technology can be misused to feed right-wing propaganda, to develop 'false memories' and distort history.