India - AI deepfakes in the election campaign

What Happened

During the 2024 general election in India, political parties utilized advanced generative AI systems on a massive scale, creating thousands of deepfake videos and audio clones of candidates. The campaign of Prime Minister Narendra Modi used AI to translate his speeches into multiple regional languages in real-time, while opposition parties used deepfake videos of deceased leaders to endorse their candidates. Additionally, malicious actors distributed deepfakes of Bollywood actors falsely endorsing political parties, creating a highly volatile information environment where voters struggled to identify authentic messages.

How MEG 1 would have acted

The systematic deployment of generative AI to fabricate political endorsements and biometric representations represents a high-risk cognitive manipulation campaign, compromising the cognitive integrity and informational sovereignty of the electorate.

MEG 2 Analysis - Legal Framework

Agent level: N3 (individualized/advanced) - generative AI systems used to produce large-scale, politically active biometric simulations (deepfakes) deployed systematically in a national campaign.
Cause (6.1):
(c) cognitive manipulation / biometric impersonation - the systematic use of generative AI to fabricate biometric representations of public figures to influence public perception and electoral outcomes.
Attachment of liability: The political campaigns as the operators are fully liable for the representations made by their generated content; the image and voice generation platforms share liability if they failed to implement mandatory digital watermarking (7.2).

Procedural Mechanism

6.2 (architectural human confirmation): Generative image platforms and social networks must implement architectural disclosure. Platforms must technically block the generation or distribution of photorealistic representations of public figures during election windows unless they contain unalterable cryptographic watermarks.
7.2 (anti-weaponization): Software developers are exonerated of liability if they implemented mandatory, unalterable metadata watermarks; full liability is placed on the campaign operators.
7.1 (independent forensics): The generation parameters, prompt inputs, and cryptographic metadata of the campaign assets must be logged in a secure ledger for public verification.