The French city of Cannes hosted a roundtable discussion on February 14 called “The Metamorphosis of Democracy – How Artificial Intelligence is Disrupting Digital Governance and Redefining Our Policy.”
The debate was covered in an article by EL PAÍS after Gianluca Misuraca, Vice President of Technology Diplomacy at Inspiring Futures, introduced the concept of “hypnocracy” — a new form of manipulation outlined in a book by Jianwei Xun called Hypnocracy: Trump, Musk, and the New Architecture of Reality. However, this Hong Kong philosopher does not exist, as revealed by Sabina Minardi, editor-in-chief of the Italian magazine L’Espresso.
The theory was created by essayist and editor Andrea Colamedici, who, although listed as a translator, is actually the co-author of the book, along with two AI platforms. This fact was never disclosed, violating EU law on AI. In response, EL PAÍS decided to remove the article published on March 26, which referenced content from the book attributed to the non-existent Hong Kong philosopher.
The theory has been widely discussed by media outlets and academic figures, including Cecilia Danesi, a researcher at the Institute of European Studies and Human Rights (Pontifical University of Salamanca), who attended the Cannes meeting and delved into the concepts in Hypnocracy: Trump, Musk, and the New Architecture of Reality.
Journalist Sabina Minardi, after multiple attempts to interview the supposed author, uncovered that it was a pseudonym for a work created and edited by Colamedici in collaboration with two AI tools, part of a project to reveal AI’s influence in producing coherent and convincing discourse. As a result, researcher Danesi referred to this new form of manipulation as a “digital dictatorship.”
Emilio Carelli, the director of L’Espresso, discussed the controversy in an opinion piece: “At this point, an obligatory question arises: if the theses of this book are correct or at least have sparked an intense cultural debate, involving intellectuals and philosophers, including academics from the prestigious HEC Institute of Paris, who cited it in their scientific articles, does it really matter if it was written by artificial intelligence? Or, as in this case, co-created with AI? Could this model pave the way for a new way of doing philosophy? If so, the successful experiment of Hypnocracy teaches us something important: we can also have an active relationship with AI, and, above all, we can use it to learn to think.”
EL PAÍS’s article, based on Misuraca’s references to the content of the book — which labels Donald Trump and Elon Musk as “high priests” of hypnocracy — and Danesi’s reflections as a participant in the Cannes meeting, draws from parts of the book and recent studies, such as one from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the University of Oxford, conducted in 10 countries across Europe, America, Africa, and Australia. These studies call for content moderation to prevent manipulation, hate speech, and examine the limits of freedom of expression.
Tlon Editions, founded by the creator of the fake Hong Kong philosopher and Maura Gancitano, was created as “an attempt to recover the original way of doing philosophy: through dialogue and human encounter,” according to Colamedici’s own writings. However, in the work attributed to Jianwei Xun, as revealed by Sabina Minardi, the dialogue is between the author and artificial intelligence, with the “human encounter” being Colamedici’s interaction with the machine.
To solidify the deception, Colamedici invented the following biography for the fake author: “Jianwei Xun is a philosopher and media theorist working at the intersection of critical theory, digital studies, and philosophy of mind. His work focuses on the impact of digital technologies on collective consciousness and the formation of contemporary subjectivity. Hypnocracy is his first book translated into Italian.”
In the review, the publisher claims that “The era of hypnocracy is in full swing” and argues that Jianwei Xun, the fake author, reveals “how power works not through oppression, but through the stories we consume, share, and believe […] to navigate between different systems of reality and consciously traverse altered states while maintaining a core of critical presence.”
In Spanish, the book is being pre-sold by Rosameron Publishing, where it is presented as “an essential map for understanding how power operates in the era of manipulated perception.”
EL PAÍS has requested clarification from the editor and creator of the book by the fake Jianwei Xun, and his publishing house responded in an email expressing their intent to respond “as soon as possible.” The newspaper has also requested information from Rosameron, but has not received a reply yet.
The European AI Act, adopted by EU institutions on December 8, 2023, and approved by the European Parliament on March 13, 2024, considers it a serious violation to fail to label AI-generated texts, videos, or audios, which Colamedici’s published work does not do at any point.
Jianwei Xun’s website has been updated to include the following reference, now revealing his identity: “Jianwei Xun emerged in late 2024 as a distributed philosophical entity born from the collaborative interaction between human intelligence and artificial intelligence systems.”
The website admits the deception by acknowledging that Xun was “initially introduced to the world as a Hong Kong-born philosopher based in Berlin.” It still maintains contact details for interview requests or “event appearances,” as well as a scientific publication on the Academia.edu portal.
On the Academia.edu portal — a free academic social network designed for scientific contact and sharing research papers —the following bio has been posted: “Jianwei Xun is a Hong Kong-born cultural analyst and philosopher whose work bridges the worlds of media, narrative theory, and philosophy. With a background in political philosophy and media studies at Dublin University, Xun spent years consulting on strategic narratives for global institutions before dedicating himself to writing.”
Now, the website of Jianwei Xun warns that he does not exist, without referencing L’Espresso‘s investigation that exposed the truth: “Xun’s true nature as a hybrid intellectual construct was revealed in spring 2025, transforming what began as a meta-narrative experiment into a genuine philosophical event.”
It adds: “Xun was created through an experimental collaboration between Italian philosopher Andrea Colamedici and advanced language models, as part of a research project on narrative construction and reality manipulation in the digital age. Rather than a simple pseudonym or fictional character, Xun represents a new form of distributed authorship and emergent intelligence — a third space where human and artificial cognition meet and generate configurations of thought that neither could produce independently.”
