Melania Trump’s letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin has sparked speculation over whether the first lady used AI to pen a missive to the Kremlin chief.
In a message posted to the first lady’s social media, Melania Trump appealed to Putin to “singlehandedly restore” the “melodic laughter” of children caught up in the nearly three and a half years of full-scale war in Ukraine.
Why It Matters
President Donald Trump met with Putin in Alaska on Friday with relations soured by Russia’s refusal to ink a ceasefire deal brokered by the U.S. to stop fighting in Ukraine.
Although no deal was reached in Anchorage, Trump described the summit as “useful” and pivoted his position on a ceasefire, saying he would move straight to a permanent peace deal.
Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, who will visit Washington on Monday, said on Saturday that Russia’s refusal to sign a ceasefire “complicates the situation.”
Samuel Corum/Getty Images
What To Know
The message sent by the first lady, dubbed a “peace letter” on her official Instagram account, quickly prompted online commentators to question whether the letter had been generated using AI.
Democrat strategist, Keith Edwards, said in a post to X the letter “says a whole lot of nothing,” and “may have been written by AI.” Chris Jackson, a long-time supporter of former president Joe Biden and Democrat activist, said in his own social media post that he had run the letter through AI, which had deemed the message to the Kremlin AI-generated.
Grok, a tool developed by Elon Musk‘s company xAI, said the letter “shows strong signs of AI generation” with “minor human edits for tone.”
There is no concrete evidence that the letter published on the first lady’s accounts was generated using artificial intelligence.
Newsweek has reached out to Melania Trump’s office for comment.
As tools improve, it becomes harder to work out when AI is responsible for published writing.
When Newsweek asked AI’s opinion on the letter, it said it had “qualities that resemble AI writing,” including a lofty, idealistic style.
“Words like purity, innocence, humanity, love, possibility, dignity are stacked densely without much concrete policy or detail. AI models tend to default to these universal values when asked to ‘sound inspirational,'” according to one AI response.
But AI also said the letter did not feature the types of tonal shifts or awkward phasing often associated with content generated using artificial intelligence.
Zelensky Thanks The First Lady for ‘Sincere Attention’
President Trump hand-delivered a letter from his wife to Putin during the summit, which focused on the fate of Ukrainian and Russian children, Reuters reported, citing two unnamed White House officials.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andrii Sybiha said in a post to social media that Zelensky had “conveyed his gratitude” to Trump during a conversation on Saturday for the first lady’s “sincere attention and efforts to bring forcibly deported Ukrainian kids back.”
The version of the letter published by the first lady on her social media does not directly mention Ukrainian children taken to Russia.
Ukraine has consistently said Russia has abducted thousands of Ukrainian children throughout its full-scale invasion of the country and relocated them to Russia or Russian-controlled areas. Kyiv has called this a war crime.
The International Criminal Court in March 2023 issued arrest warrants for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, for being “allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
Moscow has said children were moved away from conflict areas to protect them.
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said earlier this year that children had been subject to “summary executions, arbitrary detention, conflict-related sexual violence, torture and ill-treatment” in the four regions of Ukraine Russia claimed to have annexed in fall 2022.
The Kremlin declared Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia were part of Russia after referendums widely condemned as a sham. Russia had seized Crimea, to the south of the mainland, from Ukraine in 2014.
The first lady has released an audiobook touted as “created entirely with artificial intelligence audio technology.” The seven-hour-long audiobook is narrated by Melania Trump’s “official AI voice.”
Melania Trump faced accusations in 2016 that she had plagiarized a previous address given by Michelle Obama during a section of her own speech to the Republican National Convention.
Trump’s team at the time said Melania Trump had used “common words” and not copied Michelle Obama’s speech.
The First Lady’s Letter in Full
“Dear President Putin,
Every child shares the same quiet dreams in their heart, whether born randomly into a nation’s rustic countryside or a magnificent city-center. They dream of love, possibility, and safety from danger.
As parents, it is our duty to nurture the next generation’s hope. As leaders, the responsibility to sustain our children extends beyond the comfort of a few. Undeniably, we must strive to paint a dignity-filled world for all – so that every soul may wake to peace, and so that the future itself is perfectly guarded.
A simple yet profound concept, Mr. Putin, as I am sure you agree, is that each generation’s descendants begin their lives with a purity – an innocence which stands above geography, government, and ideology.
Yet in today’s world, some children are forced to carry a quiet laughter, untouched by the darkness around them – a silent defiance against the forces that can potentially claim their future. Mr. Putin, you can singlehandedly restore their melodic laughter.
In protecting the innocence of these children, you will do more than serve Russia alone – you serve humanity itself. Such a bold idea transcends all human division, and you, Mr. Putin, are fit to implement this vision with a stroke of the pen today.
It is time.”
