Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan was disqualified from running in what experts described as one of the least reliable general elections in Pakistan's 76-year history and spent the campaign in prison. Ta.
But in recent months, he has been rallying supporters from behind bars with speeches that use artificial intelligence to recreate his voice. This is part of a tech-savvy strategy the party has deployed to evade military crackdowns.
And on Saturday, official tallies showed candidates aligned with his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), won the most seats in a surprise result that threw the country's political system into turmoil. When asked, it was Khan's AI voice that declared: victory.
“I was sure that you would all come out to vote. You fulfilled my faith in you and your massive participation surprised everyone,” Khan said in the historic image. said a calm, slightly robotic voice in a one-minute video that uses footage and includes a disclaimer about the origins of AI. In his speech, he rejected claims of victory by Khan's rival Nawaz Sharif and appealed to his supporters to defend his victory.
Khan's video provides an example of how AI can work to avoid repression, especially as concerns grow about the use of artificial intelligence in elections and its misleading power. But experts say there are also growing concerns about its potential dangers.
“In this case, it's for a good cause, and perhaps a cause that we support. It means that someone who is being held on trumped-up corruption charges can talk to his supporters.” says Toby Walsh, author of “Artificial.'' He is the author of “Intelligence in the Human World'' and a professor at the University of New South Wales. “But it also challenges our beliefs about what we see and hear.”
Khan, a charismatic former cricket star, was ousted from power in 2022 and jailed last year on charges including leaking state secrets. He and his supporters claim military leaders orchestrated his ouster, an accusation they deny.
During election campaigns, officials impeded candidates' campaigns and censored media coverage of the party. In response, organizers held online rallies on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok.
The party began using AI to spread Khan's message in December, creating and videotaping speeches based on notes he gave to his lawyer from prison, the party said in a statement.
This is not the first time a political party has used artificial intelligence.
In South Korea, the then-opposition People's Power Party created an AI-powered avatar of presidential candidate Yoon Seok-yeol to virtually interact with voters to appeal to younger demographics ahead of the 2022 vote. I started speaking in slang and sarcasm. (He won.)
In the United States, Canada, and New Zealand, politicians are using AI to create dystopian images to legitimize their claims, like the Jordan Peele and deepfake Barack Obama videos. or reveal potentially dangerous features of the technology.
During the 2020 state elections in Delhi, India, Manoj Tiwari, a candidate for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, created an AI deepfake of himself speaking Haryanvi, targeting voters in his own group.Unlike Khan's video, it did not appear to be clearly labeled as AI
“The integration of AI, especially deepfakes, into political campaigns is not a passing trend, but one that will continue to evolve over time,” said Saifuddin Ahmed, assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University's School of Communication and Information Studies in Singapore.
