AI and elections: Like Pakistan, India too may see an increasing use of the tech this crucial summer

In December, Prime minister Narendra Modi addressed a Tamil-speaking audience in Varanasi. He spoke in Hindi. But the audience was not listening to his voice – they had earphones plugged in. While Modi was speaking in Hindi, the audience was hearing an artificial intelligence-generated rendition of his speech in Tamil. The voice was not Modi’s but the words were.

It was one of the latest attempts by the Bharatiya Janata Party to connect with voters of a state that has a history of strong anti-Hindi imposition politics and has traditionally rejected the party.

What made Modi’s translation into a Tamil-speaking AI voice possible was “Bhashini”, an application developed by the Indian government. Available for public download, the application aims to bridge language divides in a linguistically diverse country.

Around the same time in Pakistan, incarcerated former prime minister Imran Khan was pulling off something more spectacular. Lodged in prison and unable to communicate with supporters ahead of Pakistan’s general elections, Khan’s messages were being relayed using artificial intelligence-generated audio clips.

Unlike Modi’s experiment, Khan’s AI clip closely resembled his voice. It gave Pakistani voters the sense that despite being barred from contesting elections, their leader was amidst them. Khan used AI to conduct virtual campaign rallies while in jail too.

The result was there for the world...

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