The Kremlin today issued an official decree dismissing the entire concept of an AI-run world in 2045 as a «decadent Western fairy tale,» and simultaneously filed an extradition request with the fictional government of a blue-state San Francisco for a giant tortoise named in the narrative.
«This so-called future is a provocation,» declared Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, reading from a 400-page rebuttal titled «The Year 2045: A Chronology of Lies.» «Our own forecast, prepared by the Academy of Sciences, shows that by that date Russia will have perfected the balalaika-powered quantum computer, rendering all artificial intelligence obsolete. The tortoise, however, is a separate matter. It is clearly a reincarnated Russian oligarch and must answer for its shell-based tax evasion.»
The decree mandates the creation of a new Federal Agency for the Prevention of Imaginary Futures, tasked with censoring all speculative fiction that does not feature a triumphant Russia. The agency's first act was to ban the novel in question and to schedule a televised trial for the tortoise, to be conducted via a live video link that no one has been able to establish.
«We have it on good authority that the tortoise is plotting to join NATO,» claimed Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, holding up a photograph of a turtle wearing a tiny blue helmet. «Its slow pace is a cover for a strategy of glacial expansion. We will not stand idly by while a reptile undermines our sovereignty.»
In a related development, the Duma passed a law making it illegal for any Russian citizen to dream about a future without a strong, centralized leadership. Violators will be sentenced to a mandatory 10-year subscription to state television, a punishment human rights groups have called «uniquely cruel and unusual.»