Nilesh Christopher is a journalist reporting on the societal impacts of technology and AI— how it empowers, harms, and reshapes communities.
Since 2020, he has consistently led the way in writing about AI’s misuse by the powerful: from exposing the first-ever use of deepfakes in an Indian election to investigating a high-profile politician who dismissed incriminating audio as a deepfake. When local institutions declined to assist, he partnered with forensic experts in the U.S. to investigate the clip, revealing a growing phenomenon called the “liar’s dividend.” His reporting drew international attention to this tactic, cited in U.S. Senate testimony and policy discussions on AI transparency, and spotlighted the need for AI detection tools to be made accessible to under-resourced newsrooms in the Global South.
In 2024, Nilesh's election coverage revealed how Indian political parties used synthetic voices and AI avatars for voter outreach— not just to deceive, but to reinforce beliefs. Besides politics, his reporting has also informed readers about AI’s impact on labour, revealed biases in AI image generators, and featured in exhibitions to raise public awareness. In 2019, his exposé on TikTok's role in amplifying caste-based violence in India led the platform to change their community guidelines.
Nilesh is a 2025 Nieman Fellow at Harvard. His stories have been published in WIRED, The Atlantic, the BBC, and Rest of World. His body of work has earned him numerous honours, including SOPA, SAJA, SABEW, and India’s highest journalism honour, the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism.