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

  • @Supervisor194
    link
    English
    23
    edit-2
    6 months ago

    I find it difficult to believe he didn’t know this was possible. It’s far more likely that it’s not even slightly shocking to him that it’s possible.

    What’s shocking to him, I think, is that it appeared in this feed.

    Nevermind who made it - though if they get found out, I’d imagine they’re window-fodder for sure. In reality, the people who facilitated this whole setup should be concerned. In his mind, this had no place being here, it wasn’t funny in the slightest, and there will be hell to pay.

    • @Crackhappy
      link
      English
      76 months ago

      Defenestrated is an original Russian word.

      • Decoy321
        link
        English
        6
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        Really? Isn’t it originally from Prague, derived from latin terms? On two separate instances, wars were started because a bunch of dudes threw a bunch of other dudes out windows. Hence the Defenestrations of Prague.

        • @Crackhappy
          link
          English
          -26 months ago

          I can’t argue with you. All you do is cite hysterical facts and pretend that I don’t know what you mean.

          • @highenergyphysics
            link
            English
            66 months ago

            What a weird response. A three second search shows they aren’t “hysterical” or pretending you don’t know what they mean at all.

            I mean the entire comment is just disinformation.

            Been seeing a huge uptick in straight up nonsense and fascist antics here lately… weird times.

            • @Crackhappy
              link
              English
              -16 months ago

              Man, there is no joking allowed here.

          • Decoy321
            link
            English
            2
            edit-2
            6 months ago

            Rest assured, I too thought it pretty hysterical. The fact that a bunch of dudes decided “to hell with those assholes in charge, let’s storm their building and toss them all out the window” is pretty funny. Then, 200 years later, they got another bunch of assholes and figured “hey it worked the first time…”