Opinion China's President Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin were this week reportedly [1]overheard chatting about the possibility that organ transplants might help them achieve immortality.

That's scary because both already show signs of intending to rule their nations for the remainder of their lives, and because we know those lives can now be extended into the digital realm.

In late 2023, I met Simon See, who serves as a professor at three universities and is chief solution architect and global head of Nvidia AI. See told me sufficient material exists to create AI-powered interactive versions of historical figures like Napoleon, and that researchers are already working on such reconstructions in the hope they will help bring history to life.

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I mentioned See's prediction to friends and family who all immediately condemned the idea because they fear activists would conduct digital exhumations of history's vilest characters – fascist dictators and the like – to insert their hateful ideologies into contemporary debate.

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Little did they know that China has already [5]created a large language model that was trained to discuss Xi's philosophies

Putin and Xi will leave behind vastly larger quantities of material than Napoleon. So even if the two authoritarians can't get the wetware upgrades they desire, it seems likely they will linger on.

Brains in boxes to contemplate

A few fictional takes on brains in boxes and autonomous AIs that popped into my mind when writing this piece include John Scalzi's [6]The End of All Things and [7]Slow Time Between the Stars , Dennis E Taylor's mostly fun [8]Bobiverse series, and Neal Stephenson's [9]Fall . Enjoy!

I imagine their dynastic or ideological heirs could try to enhance their legitimacy by performatively consulting a refined Xi-bot on matters of state, or giving Robo-Putin a not entirely ceremonial seat at the cabinet table. State media could legitimize these digital dear leaders by turning to them for quotes on any matter, every day.

Forget consulting Mao's Little Red Book. Ask the LLM - Leader Language Model - to explain state ideology instead.

[10]Dems dub Trump cuts to chip export controls a 'gift' to Xi and Putin

[11]Xi know what you did last summer: China was all up in Republicans' email, says book

[12]Europe Putin the blame on Russia after GPS jamming disrupts president’s plane

[13]From Russia with chokehold: Putin says foreign IT firms still in Russia should be 'strangled'

Seemingly left unsaid in Xi and Putin's chat was that China is aggressively pursuing brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). After last year [14]calling for development of standards in the field, Beijing this year [15]demanded "accelerated adoption of BCI products" by 2027. By 2030, China wants to "strengthen its BCI innovation capabilities significantly, establish a safe and reliable industrial ecosystem, and cultivate two to three globally influential leading enterprises."

Might those innovations make it possible for Xi and Putin to hold power for longer? Even if they're reduced to existing as not much more than brains in boxes?

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I doubt that citizens of any nation, even dictatorships in which people know their votes don't matter, will consent to be ruled by brains-in-a-box whose perceptions of the world will surely become increasingly inhuman.

Yet the brain of a tyrant literally wired into the apparatus of state could be impossible to resist. A future phalanx of tanks putting down a pro-democracy movement could be controlled by a mostly dead dictator's mind. The thought of such an entity having a fever dream about launching missiles is too disturbing to contemplate. ®

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[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/03/hot-mic-catches-vladimir-putin-xi-jinping-discussing-organ-transplants-immortality

[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aL1XtSJGWw6Y8Cnqz50jkQAAARE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aL1XtSJGWw6Y8Cnqz50jkQAAARE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aL1XtSJGWw6Y8Cnqz50jkQAAARE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[5] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/23/china_xi_jinping_chatbot/

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_All_Things_(novel)

[7] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/151908304-slow-time-between-the-stars

[8] https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse

[9] https://www.nealstephenson.com/fall,-or-dodge-in-hell.html

[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/27/proposed_bis_buget_cuts/

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/25/china_hacked_gop_emails/

[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/02/eu_gps_jamming_russia_response/

[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/27/russia_chokehold_tech_firms/

[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/02/china_brain_computer_interface_standard/

[15] https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202508/07/content_WS6894aab8c6d0868f4e8f4b24.html

[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aL1XtSJGWw6Y8Cnqz50jkQAAARE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/