AI in elections: The BJP has translated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speeches into eight different languages using artificial intelligence. This was to reach a broader range of linguistic groups ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. This is named as India’s “first AI election.” It’s true that a paradigm shift in the general election of 2024 is expected to result from the widespread use of AI and its seemingly endless options.
Role of AI in Indian Elections 2024 and before
India’s electoral strategy has evolved in almost every election over the last thirty years as a result of the country’s process of integrating and utilizing developing technologies. The widespread use of phone calls in the 1990s, the first “mass mobile phone” elections in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election in 2007, the use of holograms in 2014, and the current AI era can all be linked to the growth.
The 2019 Indian general election was often referred to as the “first WhatsApp election.” As elections in Nigeria, Brazil, and several Indian states have demonstrated in the last year and beyond, WhatsApp may quickly disseminate messages intended to mislead voters for political goals. Former election campaign consultant Shivam Shankar Singh explains why WhatsApp is “an effective political platform. He says – it allows for targeted delivery of information to voters and also because it allows an excellent tool to organize and mobilize party workers” in his book, How to Win an Indian Election (2019).
How AI is impacting global elections?
In comparison, the 2024 worldwide elections are called “AI elections.” Voters in New Hampshire took a phone call in January that appeared to be from US President Joe Biden. It was, in fact, an AI-generated robocall meant to discourage Democratic voters from casting ballots at their local polling places on election day. A recording of a conversation between the pro-North Atlantic Treaty Organization Progressive Slovakia Party leader and a journalist was released on Facebook two days before Slovakia’s parliamentary elections in 2023. The chat was allegedly about election manipulation techniques. They immediately identified the audio as fraudulent, and further investigation revealed evidence of AI manipulation. However, Progressive Slovakia was not victorious in a close race. Was it a “test case” before the global elections in 2024?
There is widespread fear that, like in Slovakia, content published around elections could influence last-minute attempts. All this prevents voters from exercising their right to vote. Apart, creates a situation featuring a false image of a candidate that is difficult to contradict quickly. A few months back, a picture of Donald Trump’s arrest produced by AI went viral. What would happen a day before the election if a photo like that went viral?
Five years from now, in 2029, AI will be significantly more effective. Still, as one might expect, the world will also be more tolerant, habituated to, and ready for AI’s misleading consequences. Right now, it’s a world of unidentified unknowns. And there are still a lot of unanswered questions.
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