'Threat to Democracy', Says BJP After Open AI's Sensational Claim on Indian Elections

New Delhi: Moments after OpenAI released a report claiming that a commercial company in Israel had in May 2024 generated content targetting the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) amid the ongoing Lok Sabha elections in India, Union Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, Electronics & Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Friday said, “It is absolutely clear and obvious that the BJP was and is the target of influence operations, misinformation and foreign interference, being done by and/or on behalf of some Indian political parties”. 

Terming it a “very dangerous threat to democracy”, the minister further said it is clear that vested interests in India and outside are clearly driving this. He also emphasized on the need for this foreign interference “to be deeply scrutinised/investigated and exposed”. 

“My view at this point is that these platforms could have released this much earlier, and not so late when elections are ending”, Chandrasekhar wrote in a post on social media platform ‘X’.

The report released by the US-based artificial intelligence research organisation titled 'AI and Covert Influence Operations: Latest Trends' stated that a commercial company in Israel called STOIC had generated content about the Gaza conflict, and to a lesser extent the Histadrut trade unions organization in Israel and the Indian elections.

“In May, we disrupted some activity focussed on the Indian elections less than 24 hours after the network began generating comments that focused on India, criticised the ruling BJP party and praised the opposition Congress party”, the report claimed.

“We have been raising this even before the elections began and we raised it even during the course of the polls”, the BJP leader said while speaking exclusively with Republic Media Network's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, just moments after the report emerged.

“We met with the Election Commission officials and cautioned them regarding evidence of interference in our elections by political parties in India with misinformation and with deepfake videos”, the minister told Arnab as he stressed that there is evidence of interference from outside as well.

“There are three clear pieces of evidence - Firstly, Deepfake videos created within the country and propagated by the Congress handles. Then there is Facebook that revealed data on overseas accounts running campaigns against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP. Now, Open AI too has exposed the same”, he asserted.

The minister's remarks come just a day before India is due to vote in the seventh and the last phase of polling for the biggest poll battle of the year – Lok Sabha Elections 2024 that are currently underway in the country to elect new Parliamentary representatives and subsequently government at the Centre.

Underlining that there has been a clear pattern of targeting the BJP and PM Modi with these overseas Western interest-driven operations, Chandrasekhar told Arnab: “The people of India have realised how the Congress has repeatedly used the language of overseas terrorist agencies that are abetting interests against India”.

“We have nicknamed this operation “Zero Zeno” for the founder of the stoic school of philosophy, and to reflect the low levels of engagement that its various campaigns attracted”, the OpenAI report stated, adding that it began targetting audiences in India with English-language content in early May.