![]() ![]() “Granted, all those tools are informed by AI machine learning in some form or another, but that’s the most mundane explanation.” “It could simply be a conventional edit that’s smoothed over with a jump cut, provided you have the actual words already said somewhere else in the video,” he says, noting that such tools are easily available in editing software such as Adobe Premiere. However, while it’s plausible the clip could be a deep fake, Gregory isn’t certain it is. ![]() “Because it’s static, it’s face-forward against a neutral background, and we’re talking about an individual who presumably has lots of video available of them.” “The way this video is filmed is actually quite well set up to make deep fakes,” observes Gregory, who does not watch Succession (but says he will now). For the past half-decade, Gregory has also been leading an initiative called “ Prepare, Don’t Panic” that works to help the general public better prepare for an AI-generated media future - which is pretty much already here. But here’s the bigger question stirring debate in the Vulture Succession Slack: Was that video clip a deep fake or merely the product of skillful editing? (We’re setting aside the obvious explanation that the Succession team probably filmed Brian Cox saying the doctored lines, because what’s the fun in leaving it at that?) To find an answer, we showed the clip to Sam Gregory, the executive director of Witness, an international nonprofit dedicated to supporting the video documentation of human-rights abuses. Is it an act of corporate fraud? Almost certainly. The presentation turns out to be a success: Waystar Royco’s stock price soars, possibly making it too expensive for GoJo to buy, and it’s due in no small part to the doctored video providing a patina of legitimacy to Kendall’s moon-shooting. We’ve seen where Kendall’s flights of stagecraft fancy have taken him before (see “ L to the OG,” the “all bangers all the time” birthday party), but miraculously it works out here. “Just fucking make it happen,” Greg replies in a distinctly Greg Hirschian manner of intimidation. The tech demurs, uncertain whether he has the capability to perform the task. “What we want him to say is ‘double the earnings’ instead of ‘a significant boost,’” says Greg. Either way, the entire pitch is held hostage by Kendall’s eagerness to change the value narrative around the structurally declining media conglomerate.įueled by tech-bro delirium (with a heaping side of grief), Kendall pushes the finance team to inflate revenue projections, brings a nod toward eternal life into the product story, and enlists Greg to pressure a stage technician into manipulating a video of Logan Roy, first seen at the beginning of the episode, to get the late patriarch to say something that supports Kendall’s crazy forecasts. Succession’s sixth episode, “ Living+,” hinges on an Investor Day presentation introducing the eponymous new Waystar Royco real-estate concept, which is alternately a landed-cruise-ship experience or a prison camp for the elderly depending on whom you ask. ![]() “What we want him to say is ‘double the earnings’ instead of ‘a significant boost.’”įirst of all, it must be said that Cousin Greg got the job done. ![]()
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