As A.I. Panic Grows, Javier Milei Is Pitching Argentina As a Rules-Free Haven

Blurring the Lines

Argentina’s potential as an A.I. hub faces an uncertain future, but for now, Mr. Milei has proved to be an enthusiastic adopter of the technology. He has embraced A.I. as a key tool of political communication, using it tohelp fuel his viral success on social media.

“We have to embrace it without fear,” said Mr. Oría, the media strategist.

Mr. Milei often posts his synthetic alter ego, which is generally younger-looking, more muscular and more square jawed. He has appeared as Spider-Man, as a soccer player alongside Lionel Messi and, more recently, engaged in a conversation with Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, an Argentine president who died in 1888.

His communications team says that the images are not an attempt to deceive, but a tool to supercharge Mr. Milei’s online presence with an overflow of content. The goal is to create images that Santiago Pacheco, who handles the production of A.I.-generated content for Mr. Milei’s social media, called “weird,” “heroic” and “epic.”

Still, Mr. Milei’s habit of reposting fan made A.I. images frequently blurs the line between creative satire and deception. In January, as wildfires swept Patagonia, Mr. Milei shared an image of him alongside firefighters battling the flames, even though he had not traveled to the fire zone. Many criticized that in the digital fabrication, Mr. Milei was shaking hands with a firefighter while in real life his administration slashed funding for the agencies battling the blazes.

On the eve of a local election last year, prominent social media accounts supporting Mr. Milei circulated A.I.-generated videos falsely showing a rival candidate dropping out of the race and urging voters to support Mr. Milei’s candidate instead. Although Mr. Milei did not post the video, he defended it as an exercise of freedom of expression and rejected the idea of penalizing this type of content.

But even within his own team, A.I. experts urge caution.

“The line is getting increasingly blurred,” said Mr. Pacheco, adding, “we need to be well aware of the risks.”