During a marathon news conference on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to have a rare wobble after being confronted by an artificial intelligence “doppelganger” of himself, Reuters reported.
The virtual doppelgänger took the opportunity to ask Putin what he thought of artificial intelligence at the conference, where he spoke about, among other things, the “great tragedy” of the war in Ukraine.
“Hello Volodymyr Volodymyrovych, I am a student of St. Petersburg State University. I want to ask you, is it true that you have a lot of takes?” he asked, drawing laughter from those invited to Thursday’s marathon press conference.
“And also: how do you see the dangers that artificial intelligence and neural networks bring to our lives?” – asked the student.
The questions led to a rare moment of hesitation for Putin, who had already been answering questions from the Russian public for the fourth hour.
Vladimir Putin categorically denies the use of doubles
“I see you can look like me and speak with my voice. But I thought and decided that only one person should look like me and speak in my voice, and that would be me,” he replied.
“This is my first stunt by the way,” he added, apparently offhand.
Both the Kremlin and Putin himself have repeatedly denied that he uses doppelgangers, with speculation mounting after he launched a war in Ukraine last year.
Most recently, the Kremlin denied those rumors last month, when its spokesman Dmytro Peskov assured that “we only have one Putin.”
“In fact, he (Putin, no) has always been and is mega-active. Those of us who work with him can barely keep up with him. His energy is enviable, and we can only wish to be as healthy as him,” Peskov said at the beginning of this year.
In 2020, Putin said he had rejected a proposal to use bodyguards for personal protection during the conflict in Chechnya. “I gave up on doubles. It was during the most difficult period of the fight against terrorism,” he emphasized at the time.
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Source: Hot News
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