Literal Ghosts in the Machine

As the 6-week long general elections approach in India, campaigns turn to reviving the dead for crowd attention. Deepfakes of recently dead politicians are covering election media in Tamil Nadu. Specifically, Chief Ministers have risen from the dead.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/the-rise-of-deepfakes-in-indian-politics-ai-powered-manipulation-in-elections/articleshow/108087728.cms

In class we’ve discussed deepfake technology with politics as the tip of the iceberg freaking everyone out. We see deepfakes of Biden and Trump and worry about what misinformation and propaganda, but deepfakes in India’s election have taken a different approach. Deepfaking dead politicians as a cheaper alternative to engage audiences quickly. Politicians are widely accepting deepfakes in elections globally because trying to fight the technology is too difficult.

Computer Chess (2013) builds up an eerie yet comedic ghost in the machine, in the computers, reflecting a fear of a conscious or ghostly artificial intelligence. Political Indian deepfakes are literally reviving ghosts with machines, a different fear of misinformation and AI reality plaguing politics. Today, people, politicians, and seemingly everyone has evoked an “if you can’t beat them, join them” mentality, and it’s working favorably for some. Have we crossed the line of pushback against AI?


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