“What we’re saying to him is ‘double the revenue’, not ‘big boost’.”
Photo: David M. Russell/HBO
First of all, I have to say that my cousin Greg got the job done. Inheritance‘s sixth episode, “Living+,” introduces the eponymous new Waystar Royco real estate concept at its Investor Day presentation. Either way, the entire pitch is being held hostage by Kendall’s zeal to change the structurally declining media value narrative around his conglomerate.
Kendall, fueled by tech buddy delirium, pushes the finance team to inflate revenue projections, brings immortal life buy-in to product stories, and Greg to pressure stage technicians to manipulate Logan’s videos. ask to First seen at the beginning of the episode, Roy gets the deceased patriarch to say something that supports Kendall’s crazy prediction: “What we want to say to him is ‘earnings,’ not ‘big boost.’ double his,’ he says Greg. The technician is unsure if he has the ability to perform the task and objects. “Just let it happen,” Greg replies in a decidedly Greg Harski threatening way. And technicians do.
We’ve seen where Kendall’s performing arts fantasies have taken him before (see “L to the OG,” “Every Banger Always” Birthday Party), but the miracle generally works well here. The presentation was successful. Waystar Royco’s stock price skyrocketed and may be too expensive for GoJo to buy. This is due to the defaced video that provides a patina of legitimacy to Kendall’s lunar filming.
Is it corporate fraud? Almost certainly.But here’s the bigger issue that stirs up controversy at Vulture Inheritance Slack: Was the video clip a deep fake or just a clever edit? Inheritance The team supposedly filmed Brian Cox saying the altered lines. Because what’s the fun in leaving it alone?) We showed the clip to Sam Gregory to find out. Human rights violations. Over the past five years, Gregory has also led an initiative called “Prepare, Don’t Panic.” This is to help the general public be better prepared for the future of his AI-generated media.
“The way this video was shot is actually very well set up to create a deep fake,” observes Gregory, who didn’t see it. Inheritance (But he says he does now). “Because it’s static, we’re talking about individuals who are positive against a neutral background and who probably have a lot of video available.
However, while it’s plausible that the clip is a deep fake, Gregory isn’t convinced it is. “If the actual words are already spoken elsewhere in the video, it could be a traditional edit smoothed out with jump cuts,” he says, noting that such a tool is Adobe Premiere. I point out that it is easily available in editing software such as . “Certainly, all of these tools are informed in some way by AI machine learning, but that is the most prosaic explanation.”
To properly evaluate a clip, you need to understand the reality that there are several different and intersecting ways to commit deep fakes. Perhaps the most talked about method is called “Face Swap”, a famous Tom Cruise deepfake published in his video some time ago. However, it is also the most complicated technique to perform. It requires a significant amount of source material and processing time to generate, requires a real imitator to “run” the scene, and then uses AI tools to port the scene. Turn the intended face to the imitator.
That’s clearly not what’s happening in the Investor Day clip, which seems to largely preserve the existing Logan Roy video established at the beginning of the episode. Even when the show attempted a face swap, the stage team didn’t have much time to pull it off.
If the clip is truly a deep fake, it is more likely the product of so-called “lip-sync dubbing”. This is when someone uses a generative AI tool to move their lips to an audio track. A voice track could be someone’s real words pieced together from elsewhere. In this case, Logan would have to say “he doubles the earnings” in a different context. Alternatively, have the imitator say the words and run the recording through any number of widely available voice duplication techniques. According to Gregory, deep fake audio has become very easy these days. More importantly, tools like ElevenLabs and Microsoft’s VALL-E require less raw data of your own voice. I’m trying to spin new words and sentences from.
Whether the falsified clip is a traditional cut or a genuine deepfake, one of the things Gregory points out to be important to its effectiveness has to do with how it is presented. increase. “The success of manipulated videos also depends on the issue of validity,” he says. “Is there any expectation that people will try to poke holes in their claims?” In this case, would Fake Logan, which Living+ claims to “double the revenue”, be subject to greater scrutiny? , the clip is so fleeting within the presentation that most investors don’t feel like re-speculating it or falling into the uncanny valley. A skeptical investor will pay special attention to clips and may find hints of manipulation.
For kicks, we asked Gregory to rate the video message Logan receives at the end of the episode. Roman Roy has a microdick and is convinced he is always wrong. ” Personally, I believed this to be a clearer example of traditional editing.The message sounds more awkward, but I thought it wouldn’t be too difficult to summarize what Logan was saying. micro dickFor example, my colleague Christopher Bonanos points out: microphone may have been drawn from my confidence, B From many things and you probably steal dick from something like dictateOf course I never heard Logan say my confidence again dictate In the recording presented to us at the beginning of the episode, can Please explain it by saying you only saw excerpts from longer raw recording sessions.
But Gregory’s evaluation of the video message was quicker and more reliable than the investor presentation clip. this Definitely considered a deep fake. “There’s no doubt the audio cloning, and the lip-syncing matched,” he decided. “It clearly sounds like someone manipulated his voice to say something he didn’t say in the first place.”
Roman’s video message struck me as a morally interesting piece of futurism. Manipulating a company’s stock price using deep fake technology is legally and ethically very simple, but what’s interesting about the video message is that it ultimately ends up with the notorious emotionally stunted Roman. how it works as a tool to ease the grief of
What does Gregory think about the application of the technology? “Typically, resurrection deep fakes are more political,” he says. “Somebody resurrects a murdered journalist to criticize an emotionally powerful state.” That said, the use of deepfake technology for grieving purposes is not unprecedented. Gregory recalls a recent article about a funeral service in China that uses generative AI to provide avatars of dead loved ones that can serve grieving people. Maybe it’s time for Roman, a weary privateer, to fire up his jet for a trip to China.
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