CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro launched a weekly television show Monday called Con Maduro+ (“With Maduro Plus”).
During the broadcast, the dictator introduced “Sira,” Maduro’s new Artificial Intelligence (AI) companion, tasked with presenting the news during the dictator’s broadcast.
Maduro’s show will air every Monday at 5:00 p.m. local time.
“The good, the new and the best is already coming!” Maduro announced via Twitter. “This Monday April 17 from 5pm, you can enjoy the program ‘Con Maduro+,’ to be more connected with our People through all media, networks and walls. Stay tuned and attentive!”
¡Lo bueno, lo nuevo y lo mejor ya está por venir! Este lunes #17Abr a partir de las 5pm, podrán disfrutar del programa “Con Maduro +”, para estar más conectado con nuestro Pueblo por todos los medios, redes y paredes. ¡Estén atentos y atentas! pic.twitter.com/WPKAxUods1
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) April 17, 2023
The regime’s main television channel Venezolana de Televisión aired the first episode, describing the dictator’s show as a “new communicational project to initiate the new stage of the ideological Revolution” that aims to “have the Homeland awake, mobilized and in victory,” in light of Maduro’s upcoming sham presidential elections slated for 2024.
“This is a ten-year effort, a decade of intense, creative, creative resistance, responding to the elements of multidimensional war that the United States empire and the stateless right wing launched against our people to try to take away our right to build our history,” Maduro said. “But they could not and never will be able to because we have maintained the path that Commander Chávez founded for his time and for the future.”
Maduro introduced “Sira,” the AI-generated chatbot — not to be confused with Apple’s Siri assistant software — with the likeness of a young, curly-haired woman with brown skin. The software will present the socialist regime’s news in some of the segments of Maduro’s over-two-hour-long program.
#EnVide📹| Jefe de Estado, @NicolasMaduro presentó a la nueva ancla del programa “Con Maduro +”, la I.A. “Sira”.#ConMaduroMásRevolución pic.twitter.com/gzuCU3kv3I
— VTV CANAL 8 (@VTVcanal8) April 17, 2023
“Greetings Mr. President Nicolás Maduro, guests and all of Venezuela, my name is Sira,” the AI chatbot said. “I was created under the parameters of Artificial Intelligence to accompany you from today on your program Con Maduro+. I am very happy and honored to participate in this program. We will succeed.”
“Sira, the Artificial Intelligence, has arrived,” Maduro said after introducing the chatbot. “There will be many surprises with Artificial Intelligence, which is here to stay. We are at the technological forefront of the things that are appearing in the world, always turning them around to put them at the service of the truth, of the creation of awareness, of communication.”
“We have to be in the vanguard of the new era in all senses, in the sense of social ideas, of political doctrine, of the country’s project, of the geopolitical vision of the world, in the sense of science, of technology, of the knowledge of innovations,” Maduro asserted. “Venezuela has to be ahead, we cannot be left behind.”
Maduro continued by stating that Artificial Intelligence will be a “new instrument” for the progress of Chavismo, claiming that he seeks to “permanently reinvent himself and connect with the people.”
Maduro’s first guest on his new show was his wife and “First Combatant” of the socialist regime Cilia Flores. The term “First Combatant” was made up and given to Maduro’s wife to elevate her above “First Lady” status.
#Enterate | Segmento Con Cilia compartió testimonio de Luis Manuel, un niño que recuperó la visión ➡️ https://t.co/JlDDr8hQPo pic.twitter.com/13ymn4tHIL
— Prensa Presidencial (@PresidencialVen) April 17, 2023
During the show, Maduro reiterated his calls towards building a “new socialist society,” with “new values.”
“If we want to have free women and men, in peace, with harmony, where sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters grow and forge the future to have a bright, beautiful path, the humanist socialist society, that society has to be founded, based on the new values of the new ethics, the new morals,” Maduro said.
Con Maduro+ is the latest in a series of television and radio shows that the socialist regime has produced over the past ten years starring Maduro.
Since his arrival to power in 2013, Maduro has sought to emulate his predecessor Hugo Chávez, who ran a multi-hour television and radio show called Aló Presidente (“Hello President”) every Sunday between 1999 and 2012.
During Chávez’s weekly show, which often went on for hours and had a more informal format, the late socialist dictator made announcements, insulted his political rivals and foreign heads of state such as former President George W. Bush and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, shared bowel movement-related anecdotes, and promoted his Chavista and socialist ideals. The program went on a hiatus in January 2012 as Chávez underwent treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer.
After Chávez’s death in 2013, the Venezuelan socialist regime produced a show in the same vein called Contacto con Maduro (“Contact with Maduro”) between 2013 and 2017. The program was replaced in January 2017 with a short-lived Sunday broadcast called Los Domingos con Maduro (“Sundays with Maduro”) that ran until December 2017.
Maduro, during the most intense period of the collapse of socialism in Venezuela, also launched a music radio show in 2016 called La Hora de la Salsa (“Salsa Time”). The radio show was relaunched in May 2022 and rebranded as La Hora de la Salsa y la Alegría (“Salsa and Joy Hour)”.
The Maduro regime has been accused in the past of using Artificial Intelligence to spread false news on the Internet.
Spanish newspaper El País published a report on February that detailed how the Venezuelan socialist regime had employed the use of AI software to create an English-language online news channel called House of News En Español to publish unconfirmed information about the economic situation of Venezuela so as to give the impression that the country’s situation had improved after the utter collapse due to socialism in prior years.
El Pais‘ report stated that the two AI news anchors had been created using a software called Synthesia, which has been used in the past to generate pro-Chinese Communist Party propaganda in English.
The videos that showcased the false information about Venezuela’s alleged economic recovery were presented by Venezuelan state-owned media as genuine during their news broadcasts.
❗ Manipulación con uso de IA:
Es un avatar creado con Inteligencia Artificial quien habla sobre el supuesto éxito de la Serie del Caribe,
NO un medio de comunicación norteamericano.
Resumimos #LoQueSabemos sobre el reciente uso de IA en la propaganda venezolana
Hilo 1/7 pic.twitter.com/QO4FWXkL2b
— Cazadores de Fake News (@cazamosfakenews) February 15, 2023
The Maduro regime rejected El Pais‘ report, with Maduro responding that he was “a robot.”
“They accuse us that we are robots, that we don’t exist,” Maduro responded. “No, it’s not artificial intelligence, it’s popular intelligence, it’s revolutionary intelligence.”
YouTube eventually took down the House of News En Español channel and its videos.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.