AI-generated anchors highlight autocrats’ reliance on technical elites, essay argues

A Russian propaganda executive said AI-generated anchors on RT do not require salaries, insurance, or risk arrest, framing AI as a way to centralize control without delegating to unreliable humans. The essay argues this reflects a broader autocratic strategy: replacing human intermediaries with algorithms to reduce perceived threats of insubordination or leakage.

China’s ‘Zero Trust AI’ system cross-referenced more than 150 government databases and flagged 8,700 officials before local pressure led to rollbacks, illustrating both the ambition and limits of algorithmic oversight in autocracies.

Russia’s automated censorship tool Oculus scans hundreds of thousands of images daily for prohibited content, while the security service’s Meliorator created over a thousand profiles of fictitious Americans to spread narratives at lower cost than human troll farms.

Russia’s Digital Development Minister said in April 2025 that AI ‘can definitely replace half of officials, maybe slightly more,’ underscoring official enthusiasm for automation in governance.

The United Arab Emirates announced in April 2025 the creation of a Regulatory Intelligence Office using AI to draft and amend federal laws, and in April 2026 set a goal for autonomous AI agents to take over half of federal operations within two years.

Authors contend that even AI-generated anchors require engineers and data scientists to build and maintain them, and that these technical elites become a new Praetorian Guard whose opacity and indispensability create new dependencies and vulnerabilities for autocrats.