A.I. comes to India’s elections

For a glimpse of where artificial intelligence is headed in election campaigns, look to India, the world’s largest democracy, where voters are casting ballots until June 1.

Some campaigns have deployed A.I. avatars of candidates. An A.I.-generated version of Prime Minister Narendra Modi shows him addressing voters directly, by name. Workers in Modi’s party send out video messages to voters that can be automatically generated in any of India’s dozens of languages.

As the technology races onto the political scene, there are few guardrails to prevent its misuse. Some experts worry that voters will have a difficult time distinguishing between real and synthetic messages.