How a Philosopher Who Criticized Trump and Musk Turned Out to Be an AI Experiment

Jianwei Xun, the supposed Hong Kong philosopher whose book "Hypnocracy" claims Elon Musk and President Donald Trump use utopian promises and empty language, never really existed, at least not physically.

Instead, the acclaimed author was a "collaborative" creation between Andrea Colamedici, an Italian publisher, and two AI tools – Claude from Anthropic and ChatGPT from OpenAI.

"I wanted to write a book that would help people better understand the new ways power manifests itself," Colamedici told Decrypt.

But it wasn't until after an investigative report from L'Espresso that Xun's website was updated to acknowledge the experiment, snapshots from Wayback Machine reviewed by Decrypt show.

Still, the book received critical acclaim.

L’Espresso reports that L’Opinion, a French daily, had detailed how President Emmanuel Macron had “appreciated” Xun’s writings. Earlier in February, a roundtable at the World AI Cannes Festival extensively discussed Xun’s ideas.

Éditions Gallimard, a leading French publisher, has committed to a new translation from the Italian original, after the first edition in French from Philosophie Magazine. A Spanish translation from Editorial Rosamerón is slated for release on April 20.

Vibe philosophy?

Xun was "an exercise in ontological engineering," Colamedici explained in a post-revelation interview with Le Grand Continent.

While this experiment with AI looked novel, critics point out the book could be in trouble.

The European Union's AI Act, approved in March 2024, considers failure to label AI-generated content a serious violation – a requirement critics claim Colamedici's experiment disregarded.

In previous versions of its bio, Xun was described as a "Hong Kong-born cultural analyst and philosopher" who studied at “Dublin University.”

That wasn’t true.

According to an anonymous source from the University College of Dublin's philosophy department, no person named "Jianwei Xun" exists in their database or those of other Dublin-based universities.

"The fact that the author had inverted the Chinese order 'surname-name' was an immediate red flag," Laura Ruggieri, a Hong Kong-based researcher, told Decrypt, explaining how she spotted inconsistencies as early as February.

Ruggieri previously taught semiotics—the study of symbols and signs—at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She asked her colleagues about Xun. Nobody knew who that was.

“Not a single one of them has ever met Xun or heard his name,” Ruggieri said. “If Colamedici had used his real name and admitted that AI had written the book, no one would have bought it.”

Responding to those allegations to Decrypt, Colamedici claimed these were deliberate clues "left for those willing to question and investigate,” claiming the revelation was "predetermined."

“We actually did everything possible to make Xun’s non-existence evident to anyone with even minimally inquisitive eyes,” Colamedici said.

Colamedici insists that AI did not write the book. Instead, Claude and ChatGPT "served as interlocutors."

In the words of Xun

The book describes itself as a "journey into the fractured mirror of modern reality," and discusses how Musk and Trump have constructed an alternate reality through obsessive repetition.

It was written "for those who suspect that the world they see is only a shadow of something far more complex," its Amazon blurb claims.

Xun's thoughts center on "hypnocracy," describing a regime that exerts control through "algorithmic modulation" of collective consciousness instead of censorship.

In English: fake news.

Xun claims that Trump's speeches and social media posts create conditions of uncertainty.

Trump "empties language: his words, repeated endlessly, become empty signifiers, devoid of meaning yet charged with hypnotic power," Xun wrote.

Xun claims Musk makes promises “destined not to materialize,” by “flooding our imagination” with ventures such as space colonization and neural interfaces.

"Together they modulate desires, rewrite expectations, colonize the unconscious," the AI philosopher wrote.

Spokepeople for Musk and Trump did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair