Ada Colau, candidate of Frente Amplio in the general elections of 29N, has come out in defense of Begoña Gómez, wife of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and has endorsed the decision to file a complaint for alleged identity theft arising from the video made with Artificial Intelligence (AI) disseminated by the PP in the pre-campaign. In addition, she has reiterated her demand to the 'popular' leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, that he commit himself not to resort to this technology during the campaign in order to humiliate the political opponent.
In an interview on Cadena Ser, reported by Europa Press, she has underlined that Begoña Gómez is being subjected to an "inadmissible harassment" that, in her view, also presents "very clear macho overtones too".
For this reason, she has publicly conveyed her support to her and has considered that she acted "very well" by filing a lawsuit over the alleged identity theft, emphasizing that Pedro Sánchez's wife "is suffering an authentic campaign of harassment" and that "this is the latest episode".
Colau has stressed that political parties have a direct responsibility in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and has positively valued that Sánchez has accepted the proposal not to use this tool with the purpose of humiliating rivals, as he proposed in a letter sent to the candidates of the main parties running in the elections.
In this context, she has challenged Feijóo and the Vox leader, Santiago Abascal, to follow Sánchez's example of "not using AI in a humiliating way". Likewise, she has rebuked the PP candidate for having already resorted to this practice with the video about Begoña Gómez and has admitted that this does not give her "much confidence".
The former mayor of Barcelona has also recalled that she herself has been the target of "unbridled insults on social networks" and of "pseudomedia" that "get involved in private life and with one's family". Even so, she has assured that she is not going to deviate from her objectives despite the "harassment of the haters and of dirty tricks" during the campaign.
In another vein, the candidate of Frente Amplio for the Presidency of the Government has lashed out at Feijóo by considering that he "resembles the far right so much" that she even jokes that the PP could "suggest that he change parties".
She has reiterated that the 'popular' leader has "bought the far-right agenda 100%" and that, in practice, there is an extreme right with "two acronyms", referring to PP and Vox.
Criticisms of the use of AI by the PP and of non-compliance with European regulations
On his part, the Minister of Culture and 'number two' on the list for Barcelona, Ernest Urtasun, warned on TVE that AI "is a great tool for the dehumanization of political rivals" and censured the video released by the PP using the image of the president's wife as the "opposite of the European regulation that governs" this technology.
Urtasun explained that said regulation establishes that deepfakes cannot be made without clearly indicating that it is a "distortion of reality," and then emphasized that in the PP video "that warning is not there" or is "so hidden that it cannot be seen." Consequently, he accused the PP of resorting to "lies" and images for insulting purposes and of venturing into the "paths" of the far right, thus taking "political life" to the "dehumanization of the rival constantly".