Education Ministry slammed for AI image of kids starting 1st grade

The Education Ministry was panned across social media over the weekend for posting an AI image to Facebook on Friday of a fictional sextuplets ostensibly starting first grade, ahead of the start of the school year on September 1.

The ministry posted a picture of the six children standing in front of a school with the caption: “Next week we go back to school! In the meantime, meet the only sextuplets in the country who are entering first grade: Oren, Omer, Uri, Nadav, Dvir and Gil Orenstein.”

The post then quoted their fictional mother, Ilanit, as saying:  “I invested a lot in raising the children; it’s a great miracle that they were all born healthy. I took a two-year break from work to focus on raising the children and my husband was the sole breadwinner. I am the most excited in the world to see them grow up.”

No such sextuplets exist, and the photo was AI-generated. This fact was not initially made clear by the ministry. The post quickly drew a backlash on social media, with thousands of users slamming the ministry that is supposed to educate children for spreading a lie.

“One of your more embarrassing posts. The education system is collapsing, there are no teachers, no values, and schools are barely managing, and this is what you decide to post? A chauvinistic AI story about imaginary sextuplets with a mom who stays home and a father who supports them,” one person responded on Facebook, garnering 1,700 likes.

“Focus on improving education and not on degrading the conversation online,” she added.

Another commenter said the post was “absurd,” and “typical of the lazy and spineless” Education Minister Yoav Kisch, saying that “these are his values ​​and what he promotes before the start of the school year.”

“This is the page that represents the places to which you send your children,” said another poster. “Time to consider homeschooling.”

One user said they’d asked ChatGPT what it thought of the post, noting that the AI chatbot said it was “highly problematic, especially coming from the Education Ministry.”

“The post undermines public trust [in the ministry], and trust is the foundation of the education system,” ChatGPT added, according to the commenter.

The ministry later defended the upload, responding in a comment to its original post: “Okay, we admit these sextuplets are not really on the way to first grade, the photo was created with AI.

“We wanted to open the school year with a smile and to remind you that just like in school, on the web we also need to stop, check, and use our critical thinking,” it asserted.

“Wishing everyone a curious, fun school year full of good surprises,” its second post said.

The Education Ministry under Kisch has undergone a tumultuous year, which included several teacher strikes, budget issues and a controversial change to public school curriculum, which mandated an hour of bible study each week for all students in first to twelfth grade, as well as additional mandatory classes on Zionism and “Israel’s wars and rebirth.”

Schools will also be required to bring students on tours of Jerusalem and Jewish heritage sites around the country, with an emphasis on sites in the West Bank.