With the use of AI, there has been a shift towards linguistic diversity and expanding citizen outreach.
The first phase of voting in the general election on April 19 is just a month away, and ahead of it, artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a crucial role in the campaign trail. It cannot be ruled out that in the last two general elections, in 2014 and 2019, technology was heavily used for campaigning, and thereby increasing voter outreach and campaign management.
In 2024, for the first time, digital campaigning through social media was kicked off and live speeches were streamed and social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Election management too made use of digital technologies to get urban professionals and students to the campaign. In 2019, use of personal messaging applications such as WhatsApp, was done for citizen engagement. And now in 2024, use of AI is planned for expanding citizen outreach.
The first time AI was used ahead of 2024 general elections was for translating and dubbing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech at the Kashi Tamil Sangamam, a couple of months ago. Since the audience had mostly Tamil speaking visitors, they could easily follow the PM's speech, which was in Hindi. Thanks to AI, which enabled dubbing by Bhashini, an initiative of the IT Ministry for Indian language models, PM Modi could reach a wider audience.
Post the success of the Tamil Sangamam, the BJP is now making sure to take AI in campaigning to the next level. The party is making sure that PM's speeches are available in eight different languages, including Bangla, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Marathi, Odia and Malayalam, and it would be done via BJP's social media handles. Since a number of rallies and campaign events by PM Modi across the southern states was mostly focused on Tamil Nadu, the use of AI helped in balancing out the significant linguistic barrier.
Despite its huge benefits, concerns remain about how malicious use of AI can generate deepfakes and how generative AI models can be misused for political controversies. PM Modi has time and again expressed his concerns over deepfake videos, the government still needs labelling and consent in order to prevent misuse of AI generated content ahead of the general elections 2024.
With the increase of the AI ecosystem in India, regulatory interventions are certainly required to keep an eye on the use of generative AI during the election. Purpose-specific tools could be used by the Election Commission and other watchdogs to report any incidents of malicious use of AI during the election. Albeit, the use of AI in overcoming language barriers still proves to be a defining moment.
