The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, appeared briefly lost for words on Thursday when confronted with an AI-generated deepfake of himself.
The question prompted a rare hesitation from Putin, already in his fourth hour of taking questions at the marathon event.
“I see you may resemble me and speak with my voice. But I have thought about it and decided that only one person must be like me and speak with my voice, and that will be me,” he said.
“That is my first double, by the way,” Putin added as an afterthought.
There has been recurrent speculation, particularly in Western media, that Putin has one or more body doubles to cover for him in some public appearances because of alleged health problems. The Kremlin had denied that and said the president’s health is excellent.
Reporting by Reuters, writing by Mark Trevelyan Editing by Gareth Jones
Probably one of the few times I’ve seen him actually caught off guard (publicly)
You don’t know that. This might be a double of Putin which was caught out by AI Putin, rather than actual Putin being caught out by AI Putin.
Come on, man, now you’re clowning.
Its one of many parallel AI Putins trained on a body double Putin, the latter of which was an understudy for one of the longest time double Putins.
They’re not fucking around.
Maybe the AI Putin was the real Putin disguised by software to make him look like AI, and this is a warning to the double of Putin who replaced the real Putin in a coup ten years ago.
Putin the human has never existed. It has always been an AI double.