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Former prime minister of Pakistan Imran Khan has been in prison since August for illegally selling state gifts<\/a> \u2014 but that hasn\u2019t stopped him from campaigning. The leader\u2019s political party released a four-minute video<\/a> on Sunday evening that used AI-voice cloning technology to replicate his voice. In the video, which aired during a \u201cvirtual rally\u201d in Pakistan, the dubbed audio is accompanied by a caption that states, \u201cAI voice of Imran Khan based on his notes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Jibran Ilyas, a social media leader for Khan\u2019s party (known as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI), posted<\/a> the video on X. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Guardian <\/em>reported<\/a> that Khan sent PTI a shorthand script, which was later edited by a legal team to better resemble the politician\u2019s rhetorical style. The resulting text was then dubbed into audio using software from the AI company ElevenLabs<\/a>, which makes a text-to-speech tool and an AI voice generator.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis was a no-brainer for us, when Imran Khan is no longer there to actually meet at a political rally,\u201d Ilyas told The Guardian<\/em>. \u201cIt was to get over the suppression.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Perhaps unsurprisingly, Khan supporters have lavished the video<\/a> with praise on social media. Voicebot.ai <\/em>reported that Khan\u2019s social media team used archival footage<\/a> from Khan\u2019s older rallies and ElevenLab\u2019s synthetic audio engine to clone the politician\u2019s voice. The video is a mix of both historical footage and stock images. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The five-hour virtual rally<\/a> drew more than 500,000 views on YouTube and was also streamed by thousands on other social media platforms. In order to prevent the public from viewing the virtual rally, the government of Pakistan shut down<\/a> access to Facebook, Instagram, X, and YouTube on Sunday. According to a post<\/a> on X by the internet tracking agency NetBlocks, there was a nationwide disruption to those social platforms across Pakistan on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n