The internet has been amused at an Instagram Reel where Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi can be heard “singing” a hit Bollywood song. Accompanying the singing is a picture of Modi sitting cross-legged, strumming a guitar. The video, made by creator @ai_whizwires using artificial intelligence, has over 3.4 million views. “Before uploading [it], I was a little scared. But after it went live, everybody was enjoying it,” @ai_whizwires, who didn’t want to be identified by his real name over fear of political backlash, told Rest of World.

The rise of free AI voice-cloning tools has allowed Indian meme pages like his to mix politics with entertainment and trolling, drawing more eyeballs and engagement. Over the last few weeks, Modi’s digitally rendered voice has been used for videos not just in Hindi, but also in south Indian languages like Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada, captivating audiences in regions where Hindi is not commonly spoken.

But the videos, though lighthearted, serve a larger political purpose in India, a country with 22 official languages. Modi’s Hindi speeches can often be inaccessible to large swathes of the population that does not understand the language, but voice cloning could help make campaigns accessible, political strategist Sagar Vishnoi told Rest of World. AI voice cloning could break down this language barrier in India, especially the north-south linguistic divide, he said. “AI can be game-changing for [the] 2024 elections.”

The 2024 Indian election is expected to be the world’s largest, with an estimated 1 billion voters. Previous elections have witnessed grand political spectacles such as 3D holograms, and vigorous social media ad campaigns that aim to reach millions of people — in the coming year, AI is expected to play a large role in influencing political decisions.

In India’s linguistically diverse regions, Modi’s party has often been accused of imposing Hindi as the dominant language. “So it actually could be helpful for [Modi] to like, win the hearts of non-Hindi speakers, because now they hear him — and [he] might be more likable to people who speak other Indian languages,” Stefan Heinrich, co-founder of virtual AI music studio Mayk.it, told Rest of World. Mayk.it oversees Covers AI, a popular American voice-cloning tool that has been used to create many Modi memes. Kits.io and Audiolab are some other voice-cloning tools popular with meme creators, said the person behind the Instagram meme account @voice_drafts, requesting anonymity for privacy reasons.

Covers AI offers access to voice models of 15 global politicians including Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Narendra Modi, and Jair Bolsonaro. Users can only create one free song per week — as a workaround, @ai_whizwires uses 15 Gmail addresses. “People in the comments have started requesting more,” he said.

According to Heinrich, one should think of AI covers as meme songs. Covers AI doesn’t train or create its own voice models — instead, it acts as a marketplace that curates popular AI voice models across categories like sports, anime, and politics. Just like TikTok made it simple for anyone to make their own video, anyone can use AI to create songs in their own voice across numerous culturally relevant and niche topics, Heinrich said. The intention is to “help music fans participate in culture, entertain, and express fandoms. I think that’s what I’m most excited about [in terms of] cultural impact. More representation in songs,” he said.

Covers AI’s website underscores that the goal is not to “steal likeness,” but for fans to have fun and express their appreciation, as in the case of the Modi AI videos. During the G20 summit in September, a flood of memes appeared about Modi and his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni’s apparent chemistry. The imaginary couple has been dubbed “Melodi.” Earlier this month, an Instagram video of Modi “singing” a Telugu love song had over 2 million views, while a similar Tamil-language song had more than 2.7 million. A Punjabi song racked up more than 17 million views.

Rest of World reached out to Instagram for comment on its policies around moderating synthetic media, the contours of fair use, and the misuse of voice cloning by creators but did not receive a response at the time of publishing.

With millions listening to Modi’s digitally rendered voice, the AI meme trend has not only been a source of entertainment but has also underscored untapped political potential. “So this is a big Modi campaign basically, a big ‘Love Modi’ campaign,” Heinrich said, jokingly.

Though Covers AI has recorded millions of website visits from India, with Modi AI being the most popular voice model, Heinrich was unaware of the reason for the spike in the use of the tool before Rest of World contacted him.

Amidst the laughter and viral content, the future of political communication is taking shape. Divyendra Singh Jadoun, popularly known as The Indian Deepfaker, is using voice cloning to deliver “personalized messages” to on-the-ground party workers for the upcoming assembly elections in Rajasthan. “If you think of politics as a company, each and every employee is working for free,” Jadoun said. “The only thing that [party workers] need is recognition from their [politician].”

Jadoun is working on an AI voice model that sends personalized voice notes on WhatsApp in the voices of politicians. “Once you call a karyakarta [or on-the-ground political worker] by his name, then he knows that ‘[the politician] knows me’ — he will be like a devotee forever, doesn’t need anything else,” he said.

Rajasthan’s chief minister, Ashok Gehlot, has allowed Jadoun’s synthetic media company, Polymath Solutions, to clone his voice, Jadoun said. He is currently preprocessing Gehlot’s voice data, and expects the product to go live in a month. Polymath Solutions is pitching personalized messaging and real-time voice translation using AI products to multiple politicians.

These rapid developments in AI complicate existing efforts to regulate the internet, policy advocates told Rest of World.

“It makes that existing problem worse … but we’re not going to solve it by just putting in a ban on these tools, as we might be tempted to do,” said Prateek Waghre, policy director at the Internet Freedom Foundation. Earlier this month, citing multiple deepfake videos of politicians circulating on WhatsApp, the Indian government said it wanted to amend the law to force WhatsApp to identify those who had first shared the clips, effectively calling for breaking encryption. “[AI-led manipulated content] is likely to be used [as an excuse] to continue the existing trend of passing regulation that gives greater control and discretion for union executives,” Waghre said.

Using AI voice clips of public figures like Modi to create satire and comedy should be considered legitimate, he said. “If they choose to [ban] it, it must also be exercised along with transparency and due process for the [content creator] to then contest that.” According to Waghre, the government being able to invoke a confidentiality clause is a problem. “The platform can’t even [disclose to] the person on what grounds [their post has] been taken down for [it] to be challenged,” he said.