MEXICO CITY.- Gustavo Petroformer president of Colombia, proposed building a activism “digital united” in Latin America in a call to “progressive“to confront alleged manipulation of elections in the region with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and bots, weeks before the runoff in Brazil.
Petro made the proposal during the talk ‘Colombia before the abyss’ at the Zócalo Book Fair in the capital of Mexico,
According to the former left-wing president, there was electoral manipulation with AI in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru through false profiles used to persuade voters, and then he called to “defeat” the bots in Brazil, ahead of the second round of elections scheduled for next October 25.
He said that if each individual distinguishes reality from virtuality, “progressivism wins.”
“This is how we really destroy the most powerful owners of capital who are the owners of that virtuality,” he said in a message seeking to revive the diminished leftism and political radicalization.
He assured that Mexico is almost the only country in Latin America where progressivism is still standing, and if there were elections today, whoever is the Morena candidate would “almost certainly” win,” he stressed.
Digital activism for Brazil
Petro urged to “defeat” the bots in the Brazilian elections “with human beings to replace that communication capacity” and so that “the electorate can understand what is virtuality and what is reality.”
“That is a strategy, a tactic, I would say,” he stressed in statements cited by local media and agencies.
In Brazil’s runoff, socialist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is focused on his fourth reelection for another four years, after losing as the candidate with the most votes against the conservative Flávio Bolsonaro, in the first round on October 4.
Days later, Lula’s government ordered the Federal Police to close an investigation into alleged interference by the US government, a week after the Brazilian Attorney General’s Office denounced alleged US financing of opponents.
Call amid regional dispute
In his speech, Petro then asked to build a “united digital activism” among the progressive movements of different countries, founded in the first stage by Hugo Chávez, who “fell electorally because he relied on oil, coal and gas.”
He spoke of an activism that “is capable of overcoming the immense amount of dollars and euros that the owners of capital invest to manipulate human, individual and collective consciousness,” as he stated.
The call from the former Colombian president comes when Brazil’s electoral power reinforced measures to stop the use of AI, while the left, on which 21st Century Socialism was founded, loses influence in the region due to the push of conservative-leaning forces.
