How a Philosopher Criticizing Trump and Musk Was Proven to Be an AI Experiment
An Italian publisher used AI to fabricate a Hong Kong philosopher whose criticism of Trump and Musk caused a sensation.
Jianwei Xun - the supposed Hong Kong philosopher whose book "Hypnocracy" claimed that Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump use utopian promises and empty language - actually never truly existed, at least not physically.
Instead, the acclaimed author was a product of collaboration between Italian publisher Andrea Colamedici and two AI tools - Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT.
"I wanted to write a book to help people better understand new forms of power," Colamedici told Decrypt.
But it was only after L'Espresso's investigative report that Jianwei Xun's website updated to acknowledge this experiment, as Decrypt viewed in Wayback Machine archive snapshots.
Nevertheless, the book received high praise.
L'Espresso reported that the French daily L'Opinion had detailed how President Emmanuel Macron "appreciated" Jianwei Xun's work. In early February, a roundtable at the World AI Cannes Film Festival extensively discussed Jianwei Xun's ideas.
Top French publisher Éditions Gallimard has promised to retranslate from the Italian original, after Philosophie Magazine had already released the French first edition. The Spanish translation by Editorial Rosamerón is set to be published on April 20.
Atmosphere Philosophy?
Jianwei Xun was "an ontological engineering experiment," Colamedici explained in a subsequent interview with Le Grand Continent.
Although this AI experiment seemed novel, critics pointed out potential issues with the book.
The EU AI Act passed in March 2024 considers unlabeled AI-generated content a serious violation - critics argue that Colamedici's experiment ignored this requirement.
In early versions of the biography, Jianwei Xun was described as a "Hong Kong-born cultural analyst and philosopher" who studied at "Dublin University".
This was not true.
According to an anonymous source from the Philosophy Department at University College Dublin, neither their database nor records from other Dublin higher education institutions contain a person named "Jianwei Xun".
"The author reversing the Chinese 'surname-name' order is an obvious warning," researcher Laura Ruggieri, based in Hong Kong, told Decrypt, explaining she had noticed inconsistencies as early as February.
Ruggieri, who previously taught semiotics at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, asked colleagues about Jianwei Xun, but no one knew him.
"Not a single person has seen or heard of him," Ruggieri said. "If Colamedici had used a real name and admitted AI wrote the book, no one would buy it."
Facing Decrypt's questioning, Colamedici claimed these were deliberate clues "left for those willing to question and investigate", and called the exposure "predetermined".
"We actually did everything possible to make it obviously clear to anyone with a bit of investigative spirit that Jianwei Xun does not exist," Colamedici said.
Colamedici insisted that AI did not write the book, but that Claude and ChatGPT "served as interlocutors".
Jianwei Xun's Words
The book claims to be "a journey into the broken mirror image of modern reality" and discusses how Musk and Trump built another reality through compulsive repetition.
The Amazon description states it was written for "those who doubt that the world they see is just a shadow of something more complex".
Jianwei Xun's thoughts revolve around "hypnocracy", describing a regime that exercises control through collective consciousness's "algorithmic regulation" rather than censorship.
In English, that's: fake news.
Jianwei Xun claimed that Trump's speeches and social media posts create conditions of uncertainty.
Trump "empties language: his discourse is endlessly repeated, becoming an empty signifier, meaningless yet full of hypnotic power," Jianwei Xun wrote.
Jianwei Xun said Musk "floods our imagination" through plans like space colonization and neural interfaces, making "promises destined to remain unfulfilled".
"Together they regulate desires, rewrite expectations, and colonize the subconscious," the AI philosopher wrote.
Musk and Trump's spokespeople did not immediately respond to Decrypt's request for comment.
