What happens when a dictator dies but deepfake technology keeps him in power?

Matthew Fecteau, a US Army Information Operations Officer and PhD researcher at King’s College London, recently coined the term “synthetic sovereign” in The Diplomat. His hypothesis: North Korea could use deepfake technology to keep Kim Jong-un ruling from beyond the grave.

We discuss:

* Why North Korea may be the only country that could pull this off

* Whether enough footage of Kim already exists to make this technically feasible

* Who would orchestrate a digital puppet regime and their incentives

* The “liar’s dividend” and how Pyongyang could dismiss real evidence of Kim’s death as foreign disinformation

* What happens when a synthetic Kim appears to authorize a nuclear strike

* Why this scenario might paradoxically serve Western stability interests

Read Matthew’s article here

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