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
Honestly there were so many provoking questions that seemed like it had to have slipped through the vetting process that I am starting to think that this was vetted.
If the whole country knows you’re a delusional liar and that media is staged propaganda, putting off a show with provocative questions that seem real might be a good move to reconnect with the citizens and appear able to take criticism and as if you don’t live in an ivory tower.
But that assumes that Putin is playing some kind of 5D chess. Could be that, or it could be what it looked like - just a president being asked uncomfortable questions.
I’d have a lot more provocative questions than that, if I were Russian
But you aren’t Russian and don’t know their conditioning, if any
But that’s exactly the point. They were provocative, but not too extreme. Believable to cause a shock and a belief of honesty, of intruders, but not as provocative as they could have gotten.