Impersonation Quotes

“I've been a Danish prince, a Texas slave-dealer, an Arab sheik, a Cheyenne Dog Soldier, and a Yankee navy lieutenant in my time, among other things, and none of 'em was as hard to sustain as my lifetime's impersonation of a British officer and gentleman.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman in the Great Game

“I love doing impersonations of people.”
― Benedict Cumberbatch

“I pretended I was a Kez colonel pretending to be an Adran colonel,” Olem said. “It was disturbingly easy.”
“They didn’t ask for papers or proof?”
“In this rain?” Olem gestured at the downpour. “You don’t understand an enlisted man, sir. Nobody asks for bloody papers in this kind of weather.”
― Brian McClellan, The Crimson Campaign

“Listen, then repeat. Listen, then repeat. That was all it took to pretend well. What was a person’s self but carefully articulated mimicry?”
― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts

“Mimicry can be unkind, but at least it acknowledges that you’re there.”
― Claire-Louise Bennett, Checkout 19

“The thing is', (Rufus) Stone said, 'that if you don't believe that you are an old man, or a woman, or a tramp, then how can you expect anyone else to believe you? Looking the part is just the surface; being the part is the true disguise.”
― Andrew Lane, Fire Storm

“I’m so sorry, I forget to introduce m’self. Cleo, shat for Cleopaitra, cause m’ daddy always said I look like an Egyptian princess. And ya are?”
“Not as happy to meet you,” he said.”
― Elle Klass, City by the Bay

“Impersonators, with time give up hope, but great leaders imitate with discretion.”
― S. E. Entsua-Mensah

“I am very disappointed, Philip,” she said, still stern.
“I know, Cherry,” he accepted. “But… she did claim she was my wife.”
“She did,” she acknowledged. “Knowing nothing of your history or who you were, she did say such a foolish thing.”
― Fenna Edgewood, The Seafaring Lady's Guide to Love

“What’s true of counterfeiting money should also be true of counterfeiting humans. If governments took decisive action to protect trust in money, it makes sense to take equally decisive measures to protect trust in humans. Prior to the rise of AI, one human could pretend to be another, and society punished such frauds. But society didn’t bother to outlaw the creation of counterfeit humans, since the technology to do so didn’t exist. Now that AI can pass itself off as human, it threatens to destroy trust between humans and to unravel the fabric of society. Dennett suggests, therefore, that governments should outlaw fake humans as decisively as they have previously outlawed fake money.[54]

The law should prohibit not just deepfaking specific real people—creating a fake video of the U.S. president, for example—but also any attempt by a nonhuman agent to pass itself off as a human. If anyone complains that such strict measures violate freedom of speech, they should be reminded that bots don’t have freedom of speech. Banning human beings from a public platform is a sensitive step, and democracies should be very careful about such censorship. However, banning bots is a simple issue: it doesn’t violate anyone’s rights, because bots don’t have rights.[55]

None of this means that democracies must ban all bots, algorithms, and AIs from participating in any discussion. Digital agents are welcome to join many conversations, provided they don’t pretend to be humans. For example, AI doctors can be extremely helpful. They can monitor our health twenty-four hours a day, offer medical advice tailored to our individual medical conditions and personality, and answer our questions with infinite patience. But the AI doctor should never try to pass itself off as a human.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI

“Literature is always trying to hoodwink readers about something … and occasionally succeeding. Didn't Elizabeth Hardwick say that the greatest American female novelist was Henry James?"

"Ms. Hardwick could be such a prick sometimes," Lisa said, half-mockingly.”
― Hapax Legomenon, Existential Smut 1: Youthful Indiscretions