Synthetic Sovereign: How Kim Jong Un Could Rule Forever as a Deepfake

The Diplomat

08-07-2025

In the age of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), even death may not end the reign of authoritarian leaders. Nowhere is this possibility more plausible — or more dangerous — than in North Korea, where the regime's legitimacy is built on myth, image, and absolute control. Using GenAI, Kim Jong Un could effectively 'live forever' as a deity, projecting power and command even from beyond the grave.
Much of Kim Il Sung's rise was built on controlling narratives and distorting the reality of those he ruled. He would go on to call himself the 'Supreme Leader' and tell people he had been chosen by a higher power — essentially divine.
After Kim Il Sung's death, the myth of his immortality was reimagined as a divine transition from father to son. In its preamble, the 1998 North Korean Constitution referred to itself as the 'Kim Il Sung Constitution,' which legally embodies Kim Il Sung's juche state ideology. Kim Il Sung was deified as 'the Eternal President of the Republic.' Essentially, this means that only Kim Il Sung was, is, and shall ever be worthy of the role of president which is enshrined in the preface of the new constitution. This leadership-affirmed truth thus justified the abolishment of the presidency.
The Kims used systemic disinformation campaigns to fortify their roles as eternal leaders long before the advent of GenAI and deepfake technology. Today, GenAI systems, such as transformer-based architectures and voice-cloning models, can generate ultra-realistic video, audio, and text. Trained on extensive datasets of Kim Jong Un's appearances, gestures, and vocal patterns, GenAI systems could now construct a disturbingly convincing simulacrum that would keep Kim alive with no one the wiser.
In the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned the world that Russia's digital disinformation machinery would create a deepfake of him admitting defeat and surrendering. By mid-March 2022, a deepfake of Zelenskyy appeared with just this message. The video was debunked due to its rather crude audio and video, but not before it spread across social media and briefly appeared on Ukrainian television. Months later, the mayors of Berlin, Madrid, and Vienna each held extended video-based conversations with a deepfake version of Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Why not a deepfake Kim?
Whenever Kim disappears from public view, rumors begin to circulate quickly. Deaths of long-time leaders such as Kim often spark intense political infighting or public unrest that could plunge their countries into chaos. Considering North Korea has nuclear warheads, that is chaos the global community cannot afford. Any sudden reappearance may catch some by surprise, including prominent defectors and analysts who had publicly predicted his demise. Now imagine if those images had not been genuine but instead generated by artificial intelligence.
North Korea largely exists in a digital void, and everything is closely monitored. Average citizens do not have open access to the internet, and things like TV and radio are locked to state-run content. Phones cannot call outside the country, and foreign broadcasts are blocked or jammed. The government has taken modern technology and twisted it into a tool for deeper control. Even smartphones, which are approved by the regime, cannot go online in any real sense. They are only hooked up to a heavily controlled national network — basically a censored version of the internet. If someone wants to install an app, they cannot just download it. They must visit a government-approved store in person.
Such synthetic media could be used to produce televised addresses, battlefield inspections, or policy announcements. In a place as secretive and tightly managed as North Korea, it is entirely possible that even top officials would not know for sure whether Kim was still alive. A convincingly faked version of him — broadcasting messages, holding meetings, making appearances — would not just be a ghost of the past. It could serve as a mechanism for maintaining order, monitoring dissent, and keeping the illusion of leadership intact.
During armed conflict, a fabricated Kim could show up on screens, seemingly directing military operations or giving the green light for attacks, including a nuclear attack. A state-run broadcast might convince foreign governments that the chain of command was still intact. Would the United States, its partners, or allies have time to verify a video's authenticity before choosing whether, or how, to respond if an attack occurred? In this context, GenAI becomes more than propaganda, it becomes a weapon of mass deception.
Kim remains a critical part of stability in North Korea due to his cult-figure status. North Korean political leaders are deified and worshipped as gods. Any potential death could trigger unrest, creating a power struggle behind closed doors with consequences throughout the region.
But with today's synthetic media tools, there is a chilling alternative: even in death, Kim's likeness could live on — forever. He could appear on screens, issuing carefully crafted messages from beyond the grave. For a regime built on myth, a digitally immortal leader is not only plausible — it is ideologically coherent. Like his grandfather Kim Il Sung, still revered as the 'Eternal President,' Kim Jong Un could rule indefinitely through synthetic media.
While this is indeed concerning, there exists yet another danger called the 'liar's dividend.' The liar's dividend is when someone uses the possibility of fake content to undermine legitimate content in their favor. In a world where nothing can be trusted or believed, even a genuine event– including death — could be called propaganda. If a video emerged showing the death of Kim, Pyongyang could deny it as foreign disinformation. Conversely, a fake video could be passed off as real, manipulating public perception both inside North Korea and abroad.
There is an ironic silver lining, however. Instability in the region is not optimal. If Kim's Politburo releases a deepfake Kim after his death, this could give the regime more time to pick another figurehead, staving off any unrest — perhaps the rest of the world would prefer that over instability with nuclear weapons. In nuclear diplomacy, ambiguity can be dangerous. If adversaries hesitate, or overreact, based on inauthentic cues, the consequences could be catastrophic.
This fusion of authoritarianism, isolationism, and GenAI creates a new political phenomenon: the synthetic sovereign. In North Korea, where reality has always been more engineered than observed, deepfake technology could complete Kim Jong Un's transformation from mortal ruler into digital myth — and his isolated people would not be the wiser.
This is not a dystopian future. It is a very real scenario with profound implications for all of us, and the meaning of truth itself. In a world where even the dead can declare war, the greatest threat may not be what Kim does while alive, but what he appears to do after he is gone.