Deepfakes can create bigger crisis, warns PM Modi citing his own morphed garba video

Addressing the media at BJP's 'Diwali Milan' programme at the party's headquarters here, Modi said he recently saw a video of him performing garba even though he has not done so since schooldays.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday expressed concern about the creation of deepfakes using artificial intelligence (AI). Speaking to reporters in an interaction at the BJP headquarters in Delhi, Modi said that in villages and small towns, people have no way to verify the authenticity of online content.

“Recently, I saw a video where I was doing the garba, I was impressed. It looked real; the truth is that I last danced the garba in school,” he told reporters, referring to a viral fake video which was recently in circulation.

When ChatGPT founder Sam Altman met him, Modi said he asked Altman to see if a warning could be put. “He, too, agreed that the technology has the potential to cause harm,” Modi told reporters.

He said that during the ongoing festival season, financial transactions to the tune of Rs 4.5 lakh crore took place. “Over 13.5 crore people left poverty, and this means a new aspirational middle class has been created, which is fuelling consumption,” Modi said.

In a recent visit to Madhya Pradesh’s Shahdol, Modi said that he met two sets of people who left him awestruck – young men and women from self-help groups. He said that the men spoke to him of football clubs across the entire region, calling Shahdol a “mini Brazil”. The women said that they were changemakers as they were earning lakhs through the SHGs.

“An adivasi woman told me that she first bought a scooty for her husband, and then a tractor to help him earn. For a 32-year-old tribal woman from a village near Shahdol, to have this confidence, tells me that by 2047, the country can be developed if we all work together,” Modi said. He urged media persons to hold discussions and summits across 10 cities to devise ways of pushing India to be a trillion dollar economy.

Extending his wishes, Modi said that today, all Indian festivals are going global. “The Chhath Puja is now a global festival, Diwali has always been; this shows that we’re there on the global map,” Modi said.