Iconic Indian actor-turned-politician Muthuvel Karunanidhi has made a surprise appearance ahead of India's elections in January.
Wearing his trademark black sunglasses, white shirt and yellow shawl, he is seen in a video congratulating his friend and fellow politician on the publication of his autobiography.
In his eight-minute speech, the top politician from the southern state of Tamil Nadu also took the opportunity to praise the steady leadership of his son and current leader of the state, Congressman Stalin.
This is a strong endorsement, especially considering Karunanidhi's death in 2018.
Deepfakes are videos, images and audio clips that use artificial intelligence to imitate someone's likeness or voice.
Sometimes these are used for fun, but sometimes they are deliberately designed to mislead people, and that is exactly what appears to be happening during the Indian election campaign.
Another video that has surfaced in recent months shows Bollywood star Aamir Khan mocking India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for failing to fulfill a promise made a decade ago to put 1.5 million Indian rupees ($27,000) into the bank account of every Indian citizen.
Finally, he voiced his support for the opposition Indian National Congress Party.
The voice in the video sounds similar to Khan's but has been artificially altered.
The spokesperson clarified that though the actor has created election awareness through electioneering in the past, he has never promoted any particular political party.
Divyendra Singh Jadun — He became famous through his YouTube channel “The Indian Deepfaker” — Having worked in film and advertising, he is no stranger to this type of content.
His company, Polymath Synthetic Media Solutions, is one of several providers of deepfake services to political parties, and his team has been inundated with requests this year.
“The initial conversation was: can we make deepfakes of opposing political leaders?” Jadoun said.
Representatives of Indian political parties have asked Jadoon to manipulate audio recordings of opposition candidates making gaffes during election campaigns and superimpose their faces onto sexually explicit material.
One political party has even asked them to create low-quality fake videos of their candidate to counter any real incriminating videos that may emerge during election campaigns.
Jadoun said of the 200 requests he received, most were deemed unethical and rejected by his team.
“We don't want to defame anyone or [question] “There are traces left on some opposition leaders,” he said.
How to use AI-generated content ethically in your campaigns
Jadoun’s team is creating AI-generated videos to extend the reach of personalized messages.
For example, they could film a 15-minute video with a party leader and then build an avatar that could be used to deliver phone calls and video messages to hundreds of thousands of party members.
Messages can be personalized, addressed to everyone by name, and delivered in one of 22 national languages.
“It is not possible for the party leader to address each and every member,” Jadoon said.
He said his team has been working with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its arch rival, the Indian National Congress, and major regional parties to develop AI tools that can help evaluate the efforts of volunteers.
A former student politician, the 31-year-old is used to delivering impassioned speeches in front of large crowds and travelling across his home state of Rajasthan to network.
He knows what it takes to run an effective election campaign and says a candidate's chances of winning the election depend on the hard work of party cadres.
“If you think of politics as a business, this is the only business in the world where employees work completely for free,” Jadoun said.
“All they need is approval from a particular party leader.”
Technology has transformed political campaigns
Jadoun said when he first started in 2021, it took him seven to 12 days to create a one-minute low-quality deepfake.
Now, technology has advanced so rapidly that anyone can make one in just a few minutes.
“There are plenty of websites you can use even if you don't have any coding knowledge,” he said.
“By simply inserting one image and a video into the area where you want to replace the face, you can create a deepfake video in just three minutes.”
Sagar Bishnoi, a political consultant who has pioneered the use of AI in Indian politics and worked on India's first high-profile political deepfake in 2020, says the technology has transformed election campaigns.
He said AI has made costs 50 times cheaper and he predicts that 80% of campaigns will be driven by AI in the next five years.
“There are 800 million people connected to the internet and data prices are very cheap,” he said.
“Political parties have better internal networks and distribution channels, so they can reach out to a larger audience.”
Bishnoi, who runs workshops and awareness campaigns to train law enforcement on combating deepfakes, said the technology could be seriously misused.
“[If] “AI has the power to connect billions of people and it also has the power to create misinformation in 10 seconds,” he said.
“By getting political leaders to talk about a particular religion or caste, it can even lead to riots and disturb the social fabric of the country.”
Women and vulnerable groups are especially vulnerable to deepfakes
Women and marginalized groups in conservative and religious countries are particularly vulnerable to deepfakes.
In Bangladesh, ahead of the general election in January this year, deepfake videos of female opposition politicians, including Rumin Farhana in a bikini and Nipun Roy swimming in a pool, were released, dealing a blow to the election campaign.
According to Vishnoi, the content is aimed at changing voter perception, especially voter psychology.
According to Jaskirat Singh Bawa, head of global operations at fact-checking organization Logically Fact, the biggest challenge in combating unethical deepfakes is confirmation bias.
“It's very difficult to change the mind of someone who is willing to believe lies to further their own beliefs,” he said.
“We are currently in the midst of a very heated election season and many individuals, political groups, parties and perhaps even foreign actors stand to benefit from the debate becoming very toxic and contentious.”
Bawa said the allegations he came across were usually intended to instil ill will and anti-national sentiment towards opposition politicians.
But he said all political parties are spreading disinformation.
“When it comes to supporters of certain political ideologies, if there is information — No matter how much of a lie it is — Anything that matches their prejudices is happily promoted.[ing] “That's right,” he said.
“Right now, the balance of power is tilted in favor of the ruling party, which automatically results in more people sharing information that is favored by supporters of the ruling party.”
Dibyendra Jadoon said there are several ways to spot a deepfake, such as checking the hairline of a person in a photo or video, paying attention to movement around the eyes and looking for strange shadows.
But he said there's no substitute for intuition.
“Our intuition is better than any detection algorithm that exists today,” Jadoun said.
“If you look closely you can see it's a deepfake, but the problem is people want to believe what they want to believe,” he said.
