India’s politics descends into an AI arms race as deepfakes threaten elections – and they’re not the only ones at risk

In Telengana, an AI-generated video supposedly showing the leader of the former ruling Bharat Rashtra Samiti party, KT Rama Rao, endorsing opposition party Congress sparked a major controversy after it was watched more than half a million times on Congress’ official X account. Rao’s party ultimately lost the election, with Congress going on to form a new state government.

Other uses of AI during the state elections included the chief ministerial candidate for Congress in Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot, having his voice cloned to send personalised WhatsApp messages addressing each voter by name, and in Tamil Nadu, the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party using the technology to ‘resurrect’ former chief minister M. Karunanidhi, who died in 2018, so he could address the crowd at public events.

The government issued an advisory in December to all social-media platforms calling on them to comply with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s rules on prohibited content, especially the ones related to material intended to deceive, mislead or impersonate another person.

Another advisory issued by the ministry earlier this month urged tech companies to obtain approval before the public release of generative AI models that are “unreliable” or still being tested, warning against responses that could threaten the integrity of the electoral process.

Despite the regulations, however, many experts believe it’s not possible to stop the spread of AI-generated content, especially deepfakes.

Part of the difficulty stems from the fact that India has yet to formulate any laws regulating deepfakes, which may prove impossible anyway, according to tech lawyer and policy researcher Anushka Jain.

“Labelling deepfakes is enforced by major