The future we were warned about during the artificial intelligence boom a year ago has arrived as political campaigns, activists and others use the technology's latest tools to win over voters, even bringing back politicians from the dead, in a year that will see a record number of elections.
Despite being in jail, Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan used AI to not only speak to supporters, but also declare victory for his Tehreek-e-Insaf party after the February 8 general election.
Just days before Indonesia's elections last week, the Golkar political party released a video featuring an AI-generated clone of the dictator Suharto, who died in 2008, to rally voters. Viewed millions of times on social media platforms, the video raised questions about the ethics of portraying dead people in the context of current events.
In India, five-time chief minister of Tamil Nadu state M Karunanidhi, who died in 2018, was resurrected with the help of AI technology to appear in a video endorsing his son, MK Stalin.
Recently in the US, a robocall impersonating President Joe Biden prompted the Federal Communications Commission to ban the use of AI-generated voices. The commission said it was “making voice cloning technology used in common robocall scams targeting consumers illegal … giving state attorneys general across the country new tools to go after bad actors behind the nefarious robocalls”.
The tidal wave of political messaging with realistic computer-generated videos and audio, known as deepfakes, comes as the rapid development of AI technology has improved the quality of such content dramatically. One recent study found that humans were unable to accurately detect more than a quarter of deepfake speech samples.
At the same time, these advances have exposed the shortcomings of regulatory efforts around the world on several levels.
First, despite efforts and initiatives to establish global standards, implementation of international AI regulation remains elusive.
There is also the seemingly timeless problem of regulators playing a game of catch-up, with a deceptive AI-generated video or audio clip receiving millions of views before any action can be taken.
Further complicating regulation are the various implementations of AI video enhancement tools to facilitate quick translations of speeches into different languages. These have prompted some to warn against any one-size-fits-all bans that might block the use of AI to broaden the audience for educational videos.
Timothy Kneeland, a political science and history professor at Nazareth College in New York state, said there was no silver bullet solution on the international stage, and that the reactive rather than proactive response from various governments is not necessarily a surprise.
“Think about radio … Commercial radio began in the US in the 1920s and doesn't get regulated until the mid-1920s,” he said, pointing out that regulators have not been as slow as it might seem with regard to AI.
Mr Kneeland also said that although quaint, the best potential safeguard against misleading AI content could be public awareness campaigns.
“You have to train the public to be aware and conscious,” he said.
While the jury is still out on just how much impact deepfake political content will have on the democratic process, Mr Kneeland said voters already take political messaging with a grain of salt.
Given the highly polarised political environment in many parts of the world, with persuadable swing voters few and far between, “I don't know that people necessarily want their minds changed when it comes to politics right now”, he said.
Some search engines and social media platforms are attempting to stay one step ahead while also embracing the possibilities offered by AI-based media tools.
In November, Meta banned political campaigns from utilising the company's generative AI advertising tools that are used by other private sector organisations.
More recently, the social media giant said it would attach a disclaimer, “imagined with AI”, to content created with these tools, in addition to signing an agreement with industry partners such as Adobe, Microsoft, TikTok, OpenAI and others to help detect AI-generated content, though it remains to be seen how effective the accord will be.
Back in September, Google's parent company, Alphabet, announced it would require the disclosure of AI-generated political advertising content.
“All verified election advertisers in regions where verification is required must prominently disclose when their ads contain synthetic content that inauthentically depicts real or realistic-looking people or events,” Google said in a post in its advertising policy section.
Despite the efforts of policymakers and private companies to blunt the impact of deceptive AI content, the sheer speed of technological developments is proving to be the biggest challenge.
While the earliest artificial intelligence advances revolved around text, generative AI, which can create images and video, quickly followed and has grown in sophistication by leaps and bounds.
Most recently, OpenAI's announcement of Sora, an AI model that allows users to create realistic videos from just a few lines of text, sent shock waves through the tech industry.
OpenAI said the AI model would not yet be released to the public. Instead it would be looked at by cybersecurity experts “to assess critical areas for harms or risk”, as well as by “visual artists, designers and filmmakers to gain feedback on how to advance the model to be most helpful for creative professionals”.
“I don't think we were as cautious when social media first came out,” Mr Kneeland said of the proceed-with-caution mentality in AI.
“Sometimes it's the more subtle ways these new technologies change the human condition,” he said, adding it was still unclear how much impact deepfake content might have.
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Frankenstein in Baghdad
Ahmed Saadawi
Penguin Press
The specs
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MATCH RESULT
Liverpool 4 Brighton and Hove Albion 0
Liverpool: Salah (26'), Lovren (40'), Solanke (53'), Robertson (85')
RESULTS
6.30pm UAE 1000 Guineas Trial Conditions (TB) US$100,000 (Dirt) 1,400m
Winner Final Song, Christophe Soumillon (jockey), Saeed bin Suroor (trainer).
7.05pm Handicap (TB) $135,000 (Turf) 1,000m
Winner Almanaara, Dane O’Neill, Doug Watson.
7.40pm Handicap (TB) $175,000 (D) 1,900m
Winner Grand Argentier, Brett Doyle, Doug Watson.
8.15pm Meydan Challenge Listed Handicap (TB) $175,000 (T) 1,400m
Winner Major Partnership, Patrick Cosgrave, Saeed bin Suroor.
8.50pm Dubai Stakes Group 3 (TB) $200,000 (D) 1,200m
Winner Gladiator King, Mickael Barzalona, Satish Seemar.
9.25pm Dubai Racing Club Classic Listed Handicap (TB) $175,000 (T) 2,410m
Winner Universal Order, Richard Mullen, David Simcock.
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More by Adrian Harte
Jawbone Press
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
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Opening weekend Premier League fixtures
Weekend of August 10-13
Arsenal v Manchester City
Bournemouth v Cardiff City
Fulham v Crystal Palace
Huddersfield Town v Chelsea
Liverpool v West Ham United
Manchester United v Leicester City
Newcastle United v Tottenham Hotspur
Southampton v Burnley
Watford v Brighton & Hove Albion
Wolverhampton Wanderers v Everton
The specs
Engine: Turbocharged four-cylinder 2.7-litre
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Transmission: 10-speed automatic
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The biog
Name: Sari Al Zubaidi
Occupation: co-founder of Cafe di Rosati
Age: 42
Marital status: single
Favourite drink: drip coffee V60
Favourite destination: Bali, Indonesia
Favourite book: 100 Years of Solitude
TOURNAMENT INFO
Women’s World Twenty20 Qualifier
Jul 3- 14, in the Netherlands
The top two teams will qualify to play at the World T20 in the West Indies in November
UAE squad
Humaira Tasneem (captain), Chamani Seneviratne, Subha Srinivasan, Neha Sharma, Kavisha Kumari, Judit Cleetus, Chaya Mughal, Roopa Nagraj, Heena Hotchandani, Namita D’Souza, Ishani Senevirathne, Esha Oza, Nisha Ali, Udeni Kuruppuarachchi
Trump v Khan
2016: Feud begins after Khan criticised Trump’s proposed Muslim travel ban to US
2017: Trump criticises Khan’s ‘no reason to be alarmed’ response to London Bridge terror attacks
2019: Trump calls Khan a “stone cold loser” before first state visit
2019: Trump tweets about “Khan’s Londonistan”, calling him “a national disgrace”
2022: Khan’s office attributes rise in Islamophobic abuse against the major to hostility stoked during Trump’s presidency
July 2025 During a golfing trip to Scotland, Trump calls Khan “a nasty person”
Sept 2025 Trump blames Khan for London’s “stabbings and the dirt and the filth”.
Dec 2025 Trump suggests migrants got Khan elected, calls him a “horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor”
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
