The Italian prime minister, who has been the victim of faked online images, has registered a recording of her voice with the EU’s Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), The Telegraph reported.
***
The initiative was first reported by La Repubblica, an Italian daily, and confirmed to The Telegraph by a government insider.
Ms Meloni is believed to be concerned about her image and voice being manipulated for political ends as Italy heads towards a general election next year.
She hopes to clinch a second term in office, having recently notched up a record as Italy’s longest-serving prime minister since the Second World War.
In the recording submitted to the EUIPO, Ms Meloni repeats the phrase “Io sono Giorgia” or “I am Giorgia”.
It is thought to be a reference to her best-known speech, delivered in Spain in 2021, a year before she was elected as prime minister, in which she proclaimed: “I am Giorgia, I’m a mother, I’m a woman, I’m Italian, I’m Christian. You won’t take it from me.”
The website of the EUIPO says that the application is “under examination”.
Ms Meloni, Italy’s first female prime minister, has been the victim of AI-generated fake imagery since being elected in 2022.
In May, she chose to post a fake photograph that depicted her sitting on a bed wearing lingerie.
She shared the image as a way of sounding the alarm on the dangers of deepfake images, saying that such false photos were “dangerous” and deceitful.
“But the fact remains that, just to attack and invent falsehoods, nowadays anything at all is used. The point, however, goes beyond me. Deepfakes are a dangerous tool, because they can deceive, manipulate and strike anyone.”
She did, however, inject some humour. “I must admit that whoever created them, at least in the attached case, has also improved me quite a bit.”
The general election next year will be the first since AI adoption took off. In Italy, as in other countries, there are concerns that manipulated images and messaging could sway the outcome of the vote.
One of Ms Meloni’s political adversaries, a former special forces commander who founded a hard-Right party earlier this year, has enthusiastically embraced AI.
Roberto Vannacci has posted images of himself as a Roman general, consigning his terrified opponents to death in the Colosseum.
The political power of AI was vividly illustrated last month when Houthi rebels in Yemen used AI to mimic the voice of a government-allied commander.
In the fake clip, the commander of Yemen’s government forces issued a radio broadcast instructing his men to lay down their arms and surrender to the advancing Houthis, saying that their backers, the Saudis, had forsaken them.
His fighters did what they were told, but his voice had been cloned by AI, harnessed by the Houthis, and the command was fake.
