Our Shared Reality Is About to Self-Destruct
Stalin once erased people from photographs. Today, AI can erase truth itself. Society may not survive what comes next.
Joseph Stalin is shown with and without Nikolai Yezhov by the Moscow-Volga Canal. (Historic photo)
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5 mins
Produced by ElevenLabs using AI narration
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During the great purges of the 1930s, Joseph Stalin ordered the execution of a million people, including some of his closest associates. But it wasn’t enough for him to kill these victims—he also had to make them disappear from photographs.
In a famous case, Nikolai Yezhov was removed from his position next to Stalin in a photo taken next to the Moscow Canal. This erasure alarmed many party elites because Yezhov, head of the secret police, had been one of the most feared men in the Soviet Union.
And then he was completely deleted.
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