India is holding its legislative election, the biggest in the world with about one billion people eligible to vote from April 19 to June 1, 2024.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ruling party, is seeking to secure a third consecutive term. Several opposition parties have formed an alliance in many states to defeat the BJP in the seven-phase election.
Indian political parties are employing artificial intelligence (AI) tools to rally supporters around their campaigns. However, the emergence of deepfake videos of celebrities and political leaders raises fears that such tools could be misused to influence voters, compromising the election integrity.
Celebrity Deepfakes
Two of India’s famous Bollywood actors appeared in videos criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Mody and calling people to vote for the opposition Congress party in the general election, reported Reuters.
The two videos, featuring Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh, have gone viral online. In the videos, the two Bollywood stars say that Modi failed to deliver his campaign promises and failed to handle critical economic issues during his tenure as prime minister.
Both AI-generated videos end with the Congress slogan and symbol: “Vote for Justice, Vote for Congress.” They have been viewed more than 500 million times on social media since last week.
Manipulating Voters
A Congress spokesperson, Sujata Paul, shared Singh’s video with her followers on X on April 17, and by Saturday afternoon, it had been retweeted 2,900 times, liked 8,700 times and viewed 438,000 times.
Although Paul knew the video was labelled as “manipulated media” by X, she didn’t want to delete it thinking the person was a look alike of Singh, she told Reuters. The post was deleted on Sunday.
Both actors said the videos are fake, and Facebook, X, and other fact-checking websites said they are altered or manipulated. Social media platforms have blocked some versions of the videos, but others are still available.
Ghost Appearances
Indian politicians have developed another way for using AI-generated material in the general election, by using dead leaders in videos.
In southern India, Congress leader Vijay Vasanth’s more popular deceased father, H. Vasanthakumar, appeared in a video seeking votes for his son. Vijay Vasanth’s spokesperson said his team has created a 2-minute audio-video clip using AI that was shared on social media platforms.
In another video, actress turned politician J. Jayalalithaa who died in 2016, delivers a message criticizing the current governing party of Tamil Nadu state, once led by arch-rival M. Karunanidhi. She appears to say: “We have a corrupt and useless state government.”
Karunanidhi, who died in 2018, appeared in other AI-generated videos praising his son M. K. Stalin, the state’s current chief minister, according to France 24.
Senthil Nayagam, founder of Chennai-based firm Muonium, which made the AI video claiming to be Karunanidhi, said that using “very charismatic” speakers offer a new way to grab attention, in addition to being a cost-effective way of campaigning compared to traditional rallies.
Mocking Opponents
Most AI-generated material has been used to ridicule political rivals. This week, a leader in BJP’s youth wing posted an AI-generated video of Arvind Kejriwal, a main opponent of Modi, who was arrested last month in a graft probe.
In the video, Kejriwal appears sitting behind the bars singing a popular Bollywood song: “Forget me, for you have to live without me now,” while strumming a guitar. Another fake video shows a prominent Muslim politician singing Hindu songs.
In this regard, Joyojeet Pal, an expert in the role of technology in democracy from the University of Michigan, said that lampooning a political opponent was a more effective campaigning tool than calling them “a thug or a crook.”
Even though ridiculing opponents is a centuries-old tactic, AI-generated material can be misinterpreted as real, Pal warned.
Threat to Democracy
The use of deepfakes in campaigning has raised concerns, as voters struggle to distinguish reality from fiction. Last November, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the communications minister, warned that deepfakes were “a serious threat to democracy and social institutions.”
Pal, from the University of Michigan, warned that using AI-generated material in electoral campaigns is a serious threat, saying: “It is a threat to democracy as a whole.”
