Brazilian ex-president Jair Bolsonaro has been in political exile since September, after he was convicted of plotting a military coup against the government. But thanks to the use of AI, the voice of the 71-year-old right-wing populist and former army captain is once again being heard by the masses. On Saturday, a giant, AI-generated video recreation of Bolsonaro was projected in front of a crowd who had assembled for the presidential campaign launch of his son, the 45-year-old senator Flávio Bolsonaro. “As everyone here knows, I am imprisoned and silenced by an unjust and arbitrary decision based on something I never did,” the Bolsonaro deepfake said in a copy of the video posted to YouTube. “But I guarantee, no prison will silence the feeling of hope we have awakened.” The deepfake then implored the crowd to vote for the younger Bolsonaro—“flesh of my flesh”—in the upcoming Brazilian presidential election, which is scheduled for October 4th.
The Brazilian supreme court ruled in March that Bolsonaro, who had been defeated in the country’s 2022 election by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, could continue serving his 27-year prison sentence under house arrest at his home in Brasília due to his failing health. One of the conditions of the relocation was that he completely abstain from the use of social media or any other public communication.
