Jörn Spolander: Has Putin Been Fooled by AI-Generated Polar Bear Battles?

Vladimir Putin arrived at Russia’s annual school-opening ceremony with an unusual lesson: killer whales supposedly hunt polar bears in packs and tear them apart. He then told teachers that children should learn about this food chain to understand “the world we live in” and why Russia is conducting its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

The president made the remarks while meeting teachers and student teachers at Moscow Pedagogical University ahead of Knowledge Day, celebrated across Russia on September 1. A video published by Komsomolskaya Pravda shows Putin seated in an armchair, listening to a language teacher who had recently traveled to the Arctic.

Putin first asked whether the teacher had seen polar bears. After hearing that he had seen two, and that they were very large, Putin introduced what he described as a threat to the powerful predators. “Can you imagine, very close by live killer whales, and they eat these bears as if they were small fish. They just throw themselves at them in a group and tear them to pieces,” he said.

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Can you imagine, very close by live killer whales, and they eat these bears as if they were small fish. They just throw themselves at them in a group and tear them to pieces.

The audience listened closely, but Putin offered no clear indication of how the comparison was meant to work. Was Russia the vulnerable polar bear, or the much larger killer whale? Before interpreting the metaphor, however, the account itself needs correcting. The commentary says there is no evidence that killer whales attack polar bears, either in scientific research or in testimony from Inuit communities that have lived alongside both animals for thousands of years.

The independent Russian outlet Meduza conducted a detailed review and offered a possible explanation for the mistake. The internet contains numerous AI-generated videos depicting polar bears, although the available text ends before explaining whether Putin may have seen one of them.

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That is how the food chain works. We must tell children about this, so that they understand the world we live in and why we are conducting the special military operation.