Over 80% Indians want prohibition of Gen AI usage in political party promotion content

As 2024 becomes the year of elections, with two billion people hitting the polling booth from over 50 countries, misuse of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) has emerged as a major deterrent to a fair electoral process. Given the potential harm, more than 80% of surveyed Indians feel that election candidates should be prohibited from using Gen AI in their promotional content, a new study commissioned by editing software maker Adobe has found. 

In India alone, there have been several cases of deepfake use in election-related activities. There has been an emergence of ‘ghost appearances’ where AI media of late leaders such as J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi have been used to make voter appeal. Celebrities with a substantial fan following have been particularly impacted. Recently, deepfakes of Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh endorsing a political party were circulated. In view of such instances, close to 95% respondents believe that governments and technology companies should work together to protect election integrity against the impact of deepfakes and associated misinformation. 

To be sure, the Election Commission of India (ECI) earlier this month issued an advisory to all recognised political parties to not use deepfakes and misinformation in their social media posts and to take down any such fake videos within three hours of coming to know of it.

“The use of such manipulated, distorted, edited content on social media platforms has the potential to wrongfully sway voter opinions, deepen societal divisions, and erode trust in the electioneering process by attacking laid out instrumentalities of the electoral steps in terms of means and material,” the ECI wrote.