A Russian far-right party made an AI chatbot of its dead leader which makes predictions about the Ukraine war
Reuters
- A Russian ultranationalist party has made an AI chatbot of deceased leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
- The chatbot answers questions about the Ukraine war.
- Zhirinovsky died in 2022, and was known for his rants and clownish antics.
Russia's far-right Liberal Democrat party (LDPR) unveiled an AI chatbot of its dead leader, ultranationalist demagogue Vladimir Zhirinovsky, at an event in St. Petersburg, reports say.
The neural network based on the image and pronouncements of the late firebrand, who died with COVID-19 last year, was displayed at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Thursday, outlets including the Moscow Times reported.
Video of the chatbot by Financial Times journalist Max Seddon shows it declaring Ukraine to be a "swamp of Russophobes and traitors," replicating the hardline rhetoric of the politician.
—max seddon (@maxseddon) June 15, 2023
Alexander Dupin, a spokesman for the LDPR (which confusingly is neither liberal nor democratic), told Lenta.ru in April that the "political algorithm" named "Zhirinovsky" uses 18,000 hours of the late politician's speeches and other public pronouncements.
Dupin told the outlet the chatbot was created with the help of experts at the University of World Civilizations in Moscow, and that "the task of this neural network is exclusively educational — to acquaint people with Zhirinovsky's legacy."
According to The Moscow Times, people can ask the chatbot questions, and it makes "predictions" about key world events. At Thursday's event, the outlet said, the chatbot predicted that the war in Ukraine would continue until "peace and the Russian people's safety are fully restored."
Zhirinovsky was one of Russia's most notorious political figures before his death last year, and well known for his boorish antics and ultranationalist rants in Russia's lower house of parliament, the Duma.
Though long considered a fringe figure, his views began to find an echo in Russian President Vladimir Putin's increasingly hardline stance on seizing back territory that used to be part of the USSR.
Zhirinovsky had called for Russia to attack Ukraine, and in one of his last speeches in the Duma, predicted that "at 4 am on February 22, you'll feel our new policy" — with the projection out by only two days.
Putin paid tribute to Zhirinovsky after his death, and made a rare public appearance to attend his funeral last April.
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