Artificial Intelligence as a Tool of Digital Resistance: The Case of PTI’s Vs Establishment in Pakistan

Abstract

This paper analyzes the functioning of artificial intelligence (AI) in the post-2022 political landscape of Pakistan as a form of digital resistance, applied by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in its dispute with the military regime. Following the April 2022 no-confidence ousting of Imran Khan, and the ensuing ban on mainstream PTI views, the party depended more and more on digital platforms particularly X (then twitter) to maintain its political communication in the climate of censorship and repression. The paper extends the discussions of digital sovereignty and networked populism by considering AI-generated political media as a technology as well as a semiotic system that builds legitimacy, cultural authenticity, and continuity of leadership models by using signs and codes. PTI published an AI-generated video of Imran Khan in March 2025, the main empirical object, which received a viral cross-platform reach, which served as symbolic presence-in-absence when PTI was suppressed on an institutional level. It can be analyzed that the AI approach of PTI is a blend of cultural symbolism, platform affordances, and narrative framing, which is emotional in order to overcome the communication barriers and recruit youth-centered digital networks. Nevertheless, the paper points to the two-sided danger of AI, how the same infrastructure that facilitates dissent can be deployed against individuals to survey, spread fake news, and undermine trust in vulnerable information infrastructures. The results indicate that the AI-based opposition in hybrid regimes transforms the political authenticity by grounding legitimacy on the concept of collective identities instead of embodiment.