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First Move with Julia Chatterley
Netherlands Blocks Sales of Chip-Printing Machines to China; Biden to Propose Reducing Deficit by $3 Trillion Over 10 Years; Justanswer Helps Develop New Air Defense System in Ukraine; New AI Tool Impersonates Anyone's Voice; How AI can Change the Words Actor say; Three Arrested for "Sushi Terrorism" Pranks in Japan. Aired 9-10a ET
Aired March 09, 2023 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN HOST: A warm welcome to "First Move", fantastic to have you with us this Thursday an another busy hour coming up including a
missile barrage. Russia launching its largest wave of rocket strikes against Ukraine in weeks. At least 11 people have lost their lives many
more injured, key infrastructures were targeted too.
All of this as the fate of the city and Bakhmut continues to hang in the balance. We will be live for you in Kyiv with the latest and the physical
scars from war are clear for all to see. But what about the mental and the psychological scars inflicted on both soldiers and civilians over the past
year?
Well, now someone's trying to do something to help. A new National Mental Health Center has opened in Lviv. It provides support to those who are
suffering from conditions like PTSD, for example. It's the brainchild of Andy Kurtzig; CEO of U.S. based tech startup, just answer.
He has workers in Ukraine. He's been on the show before, and he's been providing all sorts of support since the wall began. He'll join us later on
in the show to discuss the launch of this facility. In the meantime, back here in the United States, Wall Street set for a pretty flat open as you
can see there.
Europe softer on continued uncertainty over the direction of global interest rates or the degree at least rather than the direction. Fed Chair
Jay Powell, saying in congressional testimony on Wednesday that the jury's still out on the size even of the next Federal Reserve rate hike.
Well, tomorrow's U.S. jobs report will certainly provide some answers. Until then I think we can expect choppy and some uncertainty risk averse,
let's call it that trading action. And brand new evidence that Americans are increasingly feeling stretched by continued high prices.
Cities CFOs saying more consumers are struggling to pay their credit card debt. Unpaid balances are rising. City also expecting loan losses to
increase plenty more on all of that coming up on the show but first a new player entering the global chip was.
Europe's biggest producer of advanced chip making technology has joined the United States. And its ongoing standoff with China, the Netherlands says it
will block the export of advanced chip printing machines, Beijing voicing its opposition.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAO NING, CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON: We firmly oppose the Dutch side's administrative restrictions on normal economic and trade exchanges
between Chinese and Dutch companies. We have made representations to the Dutch side.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: Anna Stewart is on the story for us. I didn't see a mention of ASML, which is a monster chip maker in the Netherlands, which is clearly
going to bear the brunt of this talk to us about the decision from the Netherlands and whether or not ASML has responded. What does it mean for
them?
ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: Well, I mean, China wasn't mentioned either, frankly. But of course, it's no stretch to imagine that this will impact
sales of chip, manufacturing and machinery and technology to that market. Given the background, we've already had similar measures from the U.S., and
ASML, which isn't just sort of the leading chip maker in the Netherlands.
But also Europe is the biggest tech company, in fact, in Europe, and it makes the machines that are critical to making semiconductors, and actually
is the lithography so the printing of transistors onto silicon bases. What was interesting, I thought was actually the response that we had from ASML,
who said that they don't have all the details that they would like in terms of what the trade ministry is suggesting here.
But they expect these measures, they say, not to have a material impact on their financial outlook for 2023. Or for their longer term scenarios, which
is interesting, because they have sold some $8 billion worth of advanced machinery to China, one of their biggest customers, for instance, is
Samsung, and they make a lot of chips in China in that market.
So then you wonder well, is that because the restrictions being introduced here aren't as big, perhaps as many would have thought ASML believes that
will only impact their second most advanced chip machinery, they already don't sell their most advanced to China.
So then you wonder, well, how big an impact will this really have? Does this restriction have teeth? Well, looking at that response from China, it
feels like it does. But perhaps that's more to do with the growing alliance of countries taking this strategy than just this response from the
Netherlands.
CHATTERLEY: Oh, that's exactly what I was going to ask you next because I think there's an understanding perhaps that America is discussing, could we
call leaning on certain countries to follow suit after the decision that they took late last year? The Japanese we could mention the South Koreans.
I think the degree of disquiet I think from certain quarters over the implications of this.
STEWART: Yes, certainly and the U.S. restrictions in October were far broader sweeping restrictions on any kind of U.S. technology or software
used anywhere in the world to create a chip that did end up in China.
[09:05:00]
So much broader restrictions that they have had interest really from the Netherlands and joining at least in part with this sort of strategy we're
expecting perhaps to see something similar announced by Japan. But South Korea, which is a major player, when it comes to semiconductors doesn't
seem to be on board at all.
If anything, they're actually not just not supporting it, they're actually opposing it saying, and it's not good for business for chipmakers and they
don't believe will be good for us either. So how far an impact this will have will depend how many countries actually support this alliance, because
it could be very damaging to some of the U.S. chip makers and the sort of companies are based around that technology in the U.S. if they are the most
extreme or be alliances?
CHATTERLEY: Yes, great points. Anna Stewart, great to have you with us on that story, thank you! And the U.S. Defense Secretary has expressed concern
about violence in the West Bank on a visit to Israel to meet the Prime Minister and Defense Minister.
That's according to a Senior U.S. Official Lloyd Austin schedule was impacted to buy protests over the Israeli government's plan to overhaul the
judicial system with demonstrators blocking a main road to the airport on a so called day of disruption.
Hadas Gold is in Tel Aviv. Hadas, I believe the meeting as well was repositioned due to some of those protests too. But I think the underlying
messages, the violence that we're seeing distracting or at least challenging their ability to work together on other regional issues like
Iran.
HADAS GOLD, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the Pentagon saying that the Israelis eventually asked the U.S. Defense Secretary to move his meetings
back and change the location so because of this day of disruption that was planned, why protesters who are not protesting the Defense Secretary.
They're protesting the Benjamin Netanyahu government's plan to massive judicial overhaul that would essentially allow the politicians in the
Israeli parliament to overturn Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority. But because of those protests, which for the first time also took
place at Israel's main airport, I've been growing airport just outside of Tel Aviv.
His meetings were essentially all done at a complex just off of the airport. He's actually as we speak, wrapping up a meeting with the Israeli
Defense Minister after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But that road along the airport, we were there earlier today.
Protesters were essentially just driving their cars incredibly slowly, and honking their horns waving flags, essentially causing passengers to have to
get out of their own cars or their taxis and drag their suitcases by foot up into the terminal. Some of the people there included former fighter jet
pilots who said that they essentially wouldn't serve for a government that they believed did not uphold democracy.
And that's what they believe these judicial reforms would do. Whereas Benjamin Netanyahu and his government thinks these are just reforms are
necessary to rebounds the government. We are now in Tel Aviv or earlier today, protesters also completely blocked the main highway in Tel Aviv,
Ayalon highway, we saw thousands of protesters on this main highway.
It's a six lane highway on both sides. They were eventually moved off by both mounted and border police who essentially squeezed them off of the
highway. But of course, for the U.S. Defense Secretary, most of his concentration during his meetings is about what's been happening in the
West Bank in recent weeks.
As you've noted, the levels of violence that we've been seeing, just overnight, we've had three more Palestinian suspected militants killed by
Israeli forces and his message to the Israelis essentially saying all of this that's been happening in the West Bank, the increased levels of
violence that is a distraction from what really matters.
And what really matters are Iran and the strategic threat posed by Iran essentially trying to tell the Israelis, we need to really work on common
situation in the West Bank. So they can focus on what is a bigger threat to Israel and to the region. But we should be hearing from the Defense
Secretary at a Press Conference in the coming probably few minutes, half an hour perhaps. Hopefully, we'll hear more about exactly what they discussed
there, Julia.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, we'll continue to follow that Hadas for now, thank you so much for that. Now, on to a mishap massive missile attack across Ukraine,
Russia launched more than 80 missiles that major Ukrainian cities overnight, targeting residential buildings and critical infrastructure that
according to President Zelenskyy.
At least 11 people lost their lives. And the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, one of Europe's largest was disconnected temporarily from the
power grid for safety reasons. We understand from the national energy company that power supply to the plant has now been restored.
Ivan Watson is in the capital Kyiv for us. Ivan, it's a frightening reminder, I think to the person there that nowhere is safe from the
sporadic missile attacks. How are the people handling it this morning?
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that is definitely one of the messages is that at any day, any time a Russian
missile could explode in your neighborhood as happened here in Kyiv. Where OK, fortunately, nobody was killed here but look, if Tom spins around,
we're right next to a giant apartment block.
[09:10:00]
So around 7 o'clock in the morning people heard this blast that destroyed these cars here and it shattered windows here and this one kind of anecdote
will illustrate how Ukrainians deal with this after a year of war. I know a mother and a daughter and an adult daughter here.
They still went to work after this pieces of this missile crashed in here and did all this damage. There are people in the Western City of Lviv, who
are not as fortunate who were killed at least 5 people there 2 women and 3 men. The Ukrainian armed forces say at least 81 missiles were fired by
land, sea and air they included Kinzhal hypersonic missiles.
That the Ukrainian says they do not have the capacity to shoot down. They do say the Ukrainian Armed Forces that they were able to shoot down about
34 of the missiles, and at least 4 of the Iranian made Shahed so called Suicide drones. But there were still impacts all across the country from
north to south.
The Ukrainians say that their critical infrastructure was targeted power plants. So at least 15 percent of the power was knocked out in Kyiv this
morning, 150,000 people without power in the City of Zhytomyr and as you pointed out, a power knocked out to the Russian occupied Zaporizhzhia
nuclear power plant it has since been restored.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has claimed responsibility for this attack, calling it retaliation for what Moscow claims was a terrorist attack on
March 2nd in the City of Bryansk, a Russian region. But we've never been able to confirm what exactly happened on that day and the Ukrainians have
not claimed responsibility. If it's a shadowy incident that took place, there take a listen to what a spokesperson for Ukraine's Armed Forces has
to say about this missile attack.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YURII IHNAT, UKRAINIAN AIR FORCE SPOKESPERSON: As you can see, the attack is really large scale and for the first time using such different types of
missiles. We see that this time as many as 6 Kinzhal were used. This is an attack like I don't remember seeing before.
Different types of aircraft are used strategic long range makes 31. There were 81 missile launchers; there were X-22, which we can't shoot down. We
can't shoot down the Kinzhal either.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATSON: So just I want to bring one important bit of context of home here. While this is terrifying and frightening for people there's a supermarket
across the street that's open its shelves are stocked the Domino's Pizza next to that is working. People here are coming and going from school from
home. So as terrifying as this reality is for them life is very much going on certainly here in the Ukrainian capital, Julia.
CHATTERLEY: Ivan, it has a numbing effect, isn't it? Even just hearing about Zaporizhzhia and the nuclear power plant? It's almost like we've
heard it so many times. Now, we don't have the same level of fear as we did initially important that we don't get numbed to the violence that we're
seeing. Thank you for being there and reporting on it, Ivan Watson.
OK, on to President Biden set to deliver his annual budget proposal to Congress later today and inspirational, aspirational sorry, document in
normal times, even more of a legislative wish list this year ahead of the 2024 elections. A fresh - too in the bruising debt ceiling battle with the
Republicans call it a case perhaps of political positioning versus legislative reality.
If I can get my words out MJ Lee is in Washington for us. MJ, great to have you with us! It's funny it's been portrayed in the media already is dead on
arrival and more of a 2024 campaign document rather than anything else. But when it relies on tax hikes into an economic slowdown, it could be right
policy at the wrong time. What are we expecting today?
MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, big day here at the White House, we do expect the full details of President Biden's budget to
come out in the next couple of hours. But let me lay out for you some of the major components of this budget that we already know about and have
reported on we know that the President is going to call for a cut in the federal deficit by some $3 trillion over the course of 10 years.
This is important significant because in recent weeks, he had actually been talking about a figure that is closer to 2 trillion so clearly making a
more aggressive effort there than was expected. We also know that he wants to get these cuts to impart come from taxing high earners and large
corporations.
He has said though, that there will not be a tax increase for anybody that is making less than $400,000. We also know that he wants to allow Medicare
to negotiate more on drug prices, and that the savings from that would go directly back into the Medicare program.
[09:15:00]
There's another component of this that the President will be focusing a lot on and that is expanding access to childcare and early education including
free pre-school for all four year olds across the country and expanding tax credits for businesses that do offer childcare benefits for their workers.
But as you were just lying out there, we should be really clear that this is not a budget that is expected to become law in any way. It is not going
to go anywhere on Capitol Hill, particularly if you consider the fact that the House of Representatives is now controlled by Republicans.
But what we basically have is a political blueprint coming from the President and the Democratic Party as they really gear up to a set up these
political contracts with their Republican colleagues on all of the issues that we just talked about.
And if you want to get a clearer sense of just what a political exercise all of this is. It's notable that the President will be traveling to the
important political swing state of Pennsylvania to roll this entire out. We very much expect that speech to have political and even campaign vibes.
Again, just going to show that yes, the budget is important. It is an important way for the President and his political party to sort of lay out
their own priorities, their agenda, and all of this, remember coming here in the U.S. ahead of what we expect to be a pretty tense back and forth
between the President and the Republican House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, as they try to figure out how to raise the debt ceiling.
Obviously, there's not been a lot of progress made on that front yet. But we do know that this is going to be a very big political battle here in
Washington D.C. in the coming months.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, this document certainly sets the tone. Thank you for that MJ Lee. OK, coming up on "First Move", answering the call. How the U.S.
tech firm just answers is helping people in Ukraine? And coming up too how AI, Artificial intelligence has been used to transform moviemaking by
manipulating mouth movements. We'll explain stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to "First Move". I was just about to show you a video actually of a conversation that I had around this time last year and
it was the CEO of JustAnswer Andy Kurtzig and his daughter Jamie talking to us last year about their decision to travel to the Ukrainian border during
spring break to deliver medical supplies and help refugees. I'll see back and find that because it's worth seeing.
[09:20:00]
JustAnswer isn't on line on demand platform where people can ask experts questions across a variety of fields; the San Francisco based firm has
around 700 employees around the world, including 300 in Ukraine. It's been helping the country since the war began and built a medical facility in the
Western City of Lviv to treat Ukrainians suffering from PTSD and other mental health conditions.
And I'm pleased to say Andy joins us now from the mental health center in Lviv, one of the cities struck by deadly Russian missile attack today.
Andy, great to have you back on the show. I'm so sad because I had a video of you and your daughter during spring break to show my viewers and just
make the contrast that there you are once again back in Ukraine trying to help.
We have much to discuss. Tell me how last night was first and foremost, are you OK? Is your team OK?
ANDY KURTZIG, CEO OF JUSTANSWER: Yes, my team is OK. The alarms went off at about 2:30 in the morning, and we're going till about 6:30 in the morning.
So spent 4 hours in that bomb shelter is trying to stay safe and the missiles did land very near here in this area --.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, what were people saying to you, because I think I was making the point earlier on the show that there's a, you know a strange
way, a danger of becoming immunized or numb, because it's so frequent that the fear for people there, but you're based in the United States, this is a
rare occurrence for you. How did you feel?
KURTZIG: Yes, mostly just tired and scared. This is rough. I mean, I'm here for you know, brief periods of time. This is my third trip since the war
started. But now my team is here every single day dealing with these air raid sirens every single day, and it just takes a toll.
And, you know, we're going to talk about the PTSD and the things that this mental health center is treating but just imagine getting woken up every
second third night getting interrupted every time you're trying to get something done having to worry about a bomb falling in your lap, but that's
daily life here.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I mean, that was sort of the direction I was headed in to your point, the physical scars, we see that the mental impact of this on
children, on civilians, even on those that are fighting in the front, and I know you've also suffered personal loss, it JustAnswer with one of your
employees being lost as well, and fighter in the war.
Andy, all of this combining to have your decision to make the decision to launch this mental health facility just talk us through that decision and
how it's working, because I know it's been a few months now?
KURTZIG: It has, it's early in the war, we're just looking for opportunities to make an impact and things that others weren't focusing on.
Others weren't helping with and one of the needs we expected to see was just an increase in the mental health problems PTSD at the top of the list.
But even traumatic brain injuries from battle as well as just daily life of dealing with the stress and trauma even if you're not in the frontlines.
And we saw that was going to lead to a huge surge in mental health issues. And so we decided to build a mental health center from the ground up and
have done that it's a beautiful mental health center.
And we're here in the art therapy room right now. But it's set at about 5000 square foot facility. 26 full time, staff and survey said about 40,000
patients a year, sessions a year in this facility all for either free or very, and much discounted prices.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I was going to ask you where you were the art therapy room. Good to know, I think and you can correct me if I'm wrong, the
facilities are free, were free for three months, and then they're being subsidized. So they're cheaper than you would get in terms of services
elsewhere. How is the financing of this working, Andy?
KURTZIG: Yes, so we basically funded the entire thing and got it up and running, helped build the whole facility. Then we handed the keys over to
the Lviv hospital. We also set up training through their Yale PTSD professionals to train the psychologists and psychiatrists here. And then
you know, now it's up and running and being managed by the hospital here.
CHATTERLEY: Do you have online facilities as well because it sorts of plays to your strengths it JustAnswer which as I mentioned in the introduction is
about being able on demand online to ask questions on any sphere. Do you have an online component too for perhaps people that can't access the
facility in Lviv?
KURTZIG: Thank you both digital online as well as face to face.
CHATTERLEY: OK, incredible work that you're doing, not the only work that you're doing and also very relevant for the attacks that we saw overnight.
Talk to me about the sky project, and what you're doing to help facilitate this is my understanding of this is the equivalent Ukrainian Iron Dome to
try and protect against these missiles strikes.
[09:25:00]
KURTZIG: Yes, one of the other early opportunities that we saw, obviously, the Ukrainian people have been begging for supplies from the rest of the
world in order to help defend against these incoming missiles from Russia. Just this morning Russia sent 181 missiles, of which several landed here in
this region where I am.
And it's tough to intercept those missiles and especially early on in the war, they had an old Soviet era system to try to intercept these missiles.
And they were just missing with their old antiquated technologies. And so several groups, including us got together and funded new computers, new
software, and new networking gear.
And were able to upgrade all those computers just to computer systems alone on that old system, in order to make them just much faster and since then,
they've been able to intercept 40 percent more missiles.
So 40 percent more successful at intercepting those missiles, just from doing IT related stuff. Now, of course, it's finally starting to get
Patriot missiles and the things that they've been hoping for, but that's it, countless lives, including possibly my own and one of my other trips
here.
CHATTERLEY: Wow, that's incredible and is the government involved in that too?
KURTZIG: They are, of course, the government was trying to get the good stuff, the Patriot missiles and such and was kind of trying to make their
way as best as they can. So we've worked with the Lviv Military General, as well as several other organizations, including some organizations in Japan
that had some of the technology that was needed.
CHATTERLEY: Andy why you do this? I remember having the conversation with you. And I do think it's important for people to understand that you do
have a huge part of your business there and Ukrainian workers, you also lived for a time, you and your wife in Ukraine, but I do think at a time
when particularly the United States, there's some discussion about the provision of ongoing, at least at this level funding to the war effort.
Why do this and what's your message to those that perhaps don't understand? Even as they see images on the television of what the Ukrainian people are
going through? What would you have them understand?
KURTZIG: So I think it's important to understand that this is a wonderful country with wonderful people, and they just want freedom and democracy and
independence and opportunity, like we in the United States get to, and the rest of the world and most of the rest of the world get to have every
single day.
And Russia is just brutally trying to take that away from them and, you know, just not right, it's not fair and they deserve that opportunity. So
we've got lots of friends and connections as well as my staff here that we made when my wife and 3 children that you've met last April.
You know, these are wonderful, smart, fun, get things done funny, interesting people that just want opportunity. And I'm so proud to be able
to help and make that happen for them and try to help them --.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, normal lives, doing normal things and all disrupted and all changed overnight. Andy, thank you for what you're doing! Thank you and
best wishes to your family as well. I'm sorry that I couldn't show you the video because you do have fantastic children as well.
We will reconvene soon and talk more. Andy Kurtzig there, the CEO of JustAnswer thank you and stay safe.
KURTZIG: Thank you, Julia.
CHATTERLEY: Thank you. OK, coming up after the break. Next time, you hear recorded voice, how can you be sure it's really them? Our reporter Donie
O'Sullivan tried to fool his own family with deep fake AI. Here's how they reacted, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:30:00]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to "First Move"! And welcome to a new artificial intelligence tool which can be used to impersonate your voice. Now while
there are plenty of fun ways to use the software, including spoofing family members, as you'll soon see, it does raise some concerning questions about
the ability to manufacture fake videos easily.
Donie O'Sullivan uncovered the software and he joins us now. Donie, this is fascinating. I do feel like we need to watch the video and then come back
and discuss this because I think - I think people have to watch you laughing and interacting with your parents to really understand the power
of this.
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Julia, you would think my parents have suffered enough but we are putting them through more torture here.
Look, this is obviously a serious issue there. This has potential really big consequences. But we wanted to show you just how powerful this
technology is to my parents. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NOREEN O'SULLIVAN, DONIE'S MOM: Hello.
D. O'SULLIVAN (voice over): Hi, mom.
N. O'SULLIVAN: Hi. How are you?
D. O'SULLIVAN: Does my voice sound different to you?
N. O'SULLIVAN: Yes, I just said that to - I says don't eat American.
D. O'SULLIVAN: This is not actually me. This is a voice made by computer.
N. O'SULLIVAN: Are you serious?
D. O'SULLIVAN: Yes, I'm sorry.
D. O'SULLIVAN (voice over): There has been an explosion and fake audio and voices being generated through artificial intelligence technology.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is an AI cloned version of Walter White's voice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is an AI cloned version of Leonardo DiCaprio.
D. O'SULLIVAN (voice over): All you need is a couple of minutes recording of anyone's voice and you can make it seem like they have said just about
anything. Even--
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anderson Cooper. We've come here to UC Berkeley today to talk to Hany Farid a digital forensic expert about just how easy it is to
put words into other people's mouths?
D. O'SULLIVAN (voice over): It's a lot of fun. Sure, but it's also really scary.
HANY FARID, PROFESSOR, UC BERKELEY SCHOOL OF INFORMATION: I think once you put aside that gee whiz factor I don't think it takes a long time to look
at the risks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is Wolf Blitzer Hany Farid you are in the situation room.
FARID: That's good.
D. O'SULLIVAN (voice over): By uploading just a few minutes of me and some my colleague's voices to an AI audio service; I was able to create some
convincing fakes including this one of Anderson Cooper.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donie O'Sullivan has a real piece of--
D. O'SULLIVAN: That's AI.
FARID: That's a really?
D. O'SULLIVAN: That's AI.
FARID: That's good
D. O'SULLIVAN: Yes, Anderson says really good because I understand doesn't have a stupid Irish accent.
D. O'SULLIVAN (voice over): The technology did struggle with my Irish accent but we decided to put it to the ultimate test with my parents.
D. O'SULLIVAN: I am about to try call my mom back in Ireland and see if I can trick her with this voice.
FARID: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: I think I'm going to be successful.
FARID: I'm nervous. I'm like my hands are?
O'SULLIVAN: Alright.
N. O'SULLIVAN: Hello.
D. O'SULLIVAN: Hi, Mom.
N. O'SULLIVAN: Hi Donie! How are you?
D. O'SULLIVAN: Just finished shooting our story here? I'm going to the airport in a while.
N. O'SULLIVAN: But it seems to be a delay in the phone, Donie.
D. O'SULLIVAN: Can I say a quick hello to Dad?
N. O'SULLIVAN: Yep.
DONAL O'SULLIVAN: Hi Donie.
D. O'SULLIVAN: Hi dad, how are you?
[09:35:00]
I just finished shooting our story here. I'm going to the airport in a while.
DONAL O'SULLIVAN: Oh, he'll come back.
D. O'SULLIVAN: Can playing this weekend?
D. O'SULLIVAN (voice over): My dad went on to have a conversation with the AI Donie about how carry our home football team had a game that weekend?
Eventually, I had to come clean.
D. O'SULLIVAN: Dad, I'll give you a call better later on. Could you just put me back onto mom for a second?
D. O'SULLIVAN (voice over): My parents knew something was off but ultimately they still fell for it.
N. O'SULLIVAN: Some of don't do that but it was like, was like your voice was a little tone lowered. It's so very serious.
D. O'SULLIVAN: Yes.
N. O'SULLIVAN: But they went oh, geez. My heart was hopping first.
D. O'SULLIVAN: Oh, sorry.
DONAL O'SULLIVAN: The life is very funny.
D. O'SULLIVAN: All right. I'll call you later Dad.
FARID: This is not classic. The mom is like, something's wrong with my son. The dad is like, everything's fine.
UNIDENTIFED MALE: I'd like to close out today's ceremony with a question if you were given a choice, would you choose to have unlimited bacon but no
more video games?
O'SULLIVAN (voice over): With fake Biden and Trump recordings going viral online. Farid says this could be something to be wary of going into the
2024 election.
FARID: When we enter this world where anything can be fake, any image, any audio, any video, any piece of text, nothing has to be real. We have what's
called the liars dividend, which is anybody can deny reality.
D. O'SULLIVAN (voice over): With a flood of new AI tools releasing online pieces, companies developing this powerful technology need to think of its
potential negative effects.
FARID: There is no online and offline world. There's one world and it's fully integrated. When things happen on the internet they have real
implications for individuals for communities for societies for democracies, and I don't think we as a field have fully come to grips with our
responsibility here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHATTERLEY: Donie O'Sullivan is back. That's the third time I've watched that. And again, I'm crying with laughter I mean, there's all sorts of
serious things we should discuss. But what did your mum think you were going to say sorry?
D. O'SULLIVAN: Yes, who only knows? Look, I think - I think my parents are never going to believe when I call them again.
CHATTERLEY: This is really you doing it.
D. O'SULLIVAN: But look, I clearly struggled quite a bit there with my accent as you could see, but when it came to Anderson's and also Wolf's
voice--
CHATTERLEY: That was good.
D. O'SULLIVAN: It did a quite convincingly. Look as Hany Farid the expert in that piece there mentioned, this is all a bit of fun, but it's not hard
to see how this can go badly very quickly, especially as we go in, you know, to the 2024 election here in the U.S. and of course many other
elections around the world? I think about the role that audio and tapes and leaked tapes play in political campaigns.
And of course, you know, not to mention scams and other types of fraud that can be done through this as well. So watch out, brace yourself for this.
And yes, if you have a terrible son like me, you might just be getting a call like that.
CHATTERELY: I was trying to school my face while you were talking about serious things together and I was just struggling. My parents put me on
loudspeaker so when you did that sentence repetition between the two of them my parents would have gone. It's great, very serious. Thank you Donie!
Donie is loving that fun.
OK, we're going to talk more about this though. This is the good news. After the break, mouth manipulation another use of artificial intelligence
and audio making actors appear to speak in foreign languages. Very huge implications for the movie industry and beyond we're going to discuss next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:40:00]
CHATTERELY: Welcome back to "First Move"! We've all seen movies dubbed from or into foreign languages where the lips don't exactly match up with the
dub dialogue. Check out this clip from the U.S. series Breaking Bad in Japanese.
(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
Artificial intelligence can now make lip sync issues a thing of the past by manipulating an actor's mouth and facial expressions to actually match
those re-recorded words. Not only can that it also be used to scrub bad language from the screen as well. This is the trailer of the lions gate
release of a movie called "Fall" that was released last year.
The act has dropped one or two swear words, but the distributor wanted a PG-13 release. So artificial intelligence was used to change the actor's
lips to match a recorded and watered down audio track and also add foreign language versions. Just watch this and you'll see what I mean the first
version has bleeped those profanities.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now we're stuck on this stupid - tower in the middle of - nowhere. And I don't blame you. And now we're stuck on this stupid
stuck on this stupid freaking tower in the middle of freaking nowhere. And it's my entire fault.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: Wow! So Scott Mann is the Co-Founder and CO-CEO of Flawless, which pioneered the technology. Scott, I've been so excited to talk to you
since I first read an article about what you do. You're also a producer and a director so you understand perfectly the problems that you were trying to
solve? Just explain what the click moment was and how the technology works?
SCOTT MANN, CO FOUNDER AND CO-CEO OF FLAWLESS: Well, for me, I think having directed films and seeing well being part of the experience of the care we
take when we direct to make movies as a film community as a whole, really like not just the director, but the actors, everyone who's involved in
that.
It's a very delicate process. And I think, really what sent me on this journey was seeing my own film, from haste with Robert De Niro and Jeopardy
Morgan that made I saw it dubbed in a foreign language. And that's when I realized how bad dubbing really is.
In that, dubbing a world that the only process that we really had for the last hundred years, it changes the script, it changes the performance, it
loses the immersion and it's very much very damaging to the film experience really.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, basically all your hard work and the actor and actress's hard work was completely massacred by the dubbing process. I'm a huge fan
of foreign language films, but I never listened to the dubbing I read the subtitles. So you have to be in the right mood.
MANN: Yes.
CHATTERLEY: How does the process actually work because we talked about mouth manipulation and we were sort of seeing that in that clip that we
showed where suddenly that the mouth of the actress was saying different words and not swearing?
MANN: Yes, absolutely. Well, well in simplest terms, it's using generative AI. So if you think of generative AI, as we know it, text based generative
AI would be in the kind of ChatGPT area. Image based is some of the stuff you might seem to stability and image generation what we do at Flawless is
generative video generative movies.
[09:45:00]
And so what it's doing is, it's doing deep learning, understanding of, of the human face. And understanding it's such a level, that it's able to
retender out different outputs, where you can change the actual synchronicity of the words, but return all the emotional performance.
So it's quite under the hood is quite sophisticated from a point of view of filmmaking. It's doing this after the film is completed, so at the point in
which you finish your version, your home language version that you'd be very proud of that's when the it starts really.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I mean, this takes a movie that is perhaps niche as a foreign language to a big distributor like a Netflix or before I get fired,
an HBO Max or an Amazon Prime, and it makes it global.
MANN: Yes. Well, the truth is, we've been making films and watching films, and telling new stories, almost at a local level for the last hundred
years. We were not making global films yet. And this is the first time when we're going to be able to do that.
So it's really taking what would have seen in an English speaking country has had a limit of, say, 400 million potential audience members, you're
widening it out to the full, like close to a billion population of the earth.
And so I think it's changing the landscape of film distribution. And I think that inherently will change the where eyes director would go about
telling a story, because I'd be more aware of different cultures and diversities that you're making a film for.
You're not just making it for a primary audience anymore, so I think it's going to in the long term, it's going to have a huge impact on how we share
and tell stories in a very positive way.
CHATTERLEY: I mean, this is a visual thing as well, primarily a visual thing, but I wanted you to watch Donie O'Sullivan, my colleagues video with
the voice manipulation, and some of it obviously, the Anderson Cooper was wearing, wasn't him, worked incredibly well.
Other parts of it always as well as. Other parts of it didn't work so well. I just wondered in terms of what you're seeing today versus how quickly you
think that perhaps this could save time even not bringing the actor's back to rerecord things. If you have to do it in post-production, you can
literally fake it all because you've got hours of their voice.
MANN: Well, yes, I think a lot of that comes down to going about this the right way. So I think what we've done here at Flawless were Filmmaking
Company in which filmmakers really building out and using these technologies and tools and I think we've approached it from the right
standpoint, because I think artistic rights and protecting those artistic rights is as important as the technology piece of this.
There's a lot of responsibility in terms of using the tools the right way. And really intersecting working with that the stakeholders as well as the
actors and directors and writers and everyone who has an impact of these tools who can get benefit from the tools, really bring them into that that
central conversation, we've done a lot of that here, by proactively reaching out to guilds and unions, this kind of thing.
And I think from a responsibility point of view, it's really about consent, you know, like so some of the clips you had in your piece there generating
to say DiCaprio's voice, you know, he hasn't given his consent to that.
CHATTERLEY: Right.
MANN: And that's a big problem. Those need that layer of regulation. And I think the films in general, have worked in that kind of trusted environment
for a long time, you know, so there's a lot of sensitive material that goes into a movie and the handling of how different to an actor's performance.
How a director is kind of custodian to that and everyone, there's this - there's already kind of pieces there that are a good foundation for how
this stuff, but I think consent from those involved.
CHATTERLEY: I can understand. And certainly the perspective that I've read in articles about that the actors and actresses might be up in arms at the
idea that perhaps it negates some of the work they do.
But I'd sort of flip it around and say you have to get their permission in order, perhaps even to manipulate their face and the images that we see of
their faces. So it sort of gives them more power, perhaps not less, at least in certain respects.
MANN: Yes, I think they're right. I think there's a huge benefit. Certainly for - I think with the kids of verging, as we call it here, right? I think
the big benefit there is it's a broken process previously where the performance is destroyed.
So offering something that does an authentic performance an authentic translation is a huge, benefit to those involved. And I think translation
of movies is quite a clean case as well because everyone's entered into something to tell a central story and given permissions to do so.
[09:50:00]
So it's kind of it doesn't go into any of the edge cases that you're highlighting in your piece, so I think, but again, I think it's about
benefit as well. It's not about taking away jobs as such, it's kind of these are in my mind, there's a lot of the generative AI is probably the
biggest change to the film industry since the invention of the camera. It's like it's going to be huge across the way we make movies, distribute
movies, the way we tell stories.
And I think that it can be a benefit to all the people involved, don't in the right way. And I think in the case of actors in, you know, in terms of,
they should again, be given the choice of what they'd like to do with the light to go to the studio or would like to do another way or that choice
for them ultimately.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, just make sure that you negotiate in your contract to cut off the distribution benefits and that will assuage those concerns about
quite quickly.
MANN: Yes, that's, there's truth in that films, they're all filmmakers, the grid, you know, we want a wider audience for many, many reasons like I
think the widest audience. And that's really the mission here at polis is to widen the audience.
CHATTERLEY: I'm going to be shouted out, because I've got about a minute left. So you have to make a quick call on that. But you said it like this
is going to be more transformative, or equally transformative as the advent of the camera, which I mean, wow.
This is why we're here and able to create these things in the first place. Fast forward five years what is it going to mean as a movie maker, never
mind the distribution because we've talked about that?
MANN: I think it's convenient that I will go about making a film differently from here on it. And knowing the tools available, I think what
it really means is telling, considering how you're telling the stories, I'd be starting from the ground up, I'd be writing a different story, I'd be
directing a different stories, I'd be casting things differently, I'd be going about the process creatively differently.
But I think really what it really means by having a wider audience, I think we have the potential to really bring back some of the mid budget movies,
they're called in Hollywood, which is where the originality comes from.
CHATTERLEY: Yes.
MANN: And you kind of have an environment to make those movies again. And the way to make those movies get my opinion is you have - breaking tools
that allow you to make kind of bigger movies more easily. But also the increase in audience means there's an affordability factor where--
CHATTERLEY: Absolutely.
MANN: --so I think it's actually the we're, for me represents a way to save kind of Hollywood and filmmaking community in general, and get back into
original storytelling.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, it well, it's a dramatic change in the cost the economics of moviemaking. Scott, I'm being told off, I'm always told off but I've
never really watched it. Thank you. Great to chat to you, Scott Mann, Co- Founder and CO-CEO of Flawless, great to chat!
MANN: Thank you.
CHATTERLEY: OK we're back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:55:00]
CHATTERLEY: And finally on "First Move" a vitally important story for you today sashimi shenanigans and perhaps temporary terrorism stick with me.
Police in Japan arresting three people for taking part in pranks at a sushi conveyor belt restaurant.
One of them allegedly put his mouth on the spout of a soy sauce dispenser. Some sushi restaurants in Japan have been dealing with these kinds of
pranks where perpetrators film themselves licking soy sauce bottles or teacups or touching food with licked fingers.
It's believed to be the first arrest in this saga. Sushi Shenanigans throw away the key I say. That's it for the show. If you have missed any of our
interviews today, there will be on my Twitter and Instagram pages search for @jchatterleycnn. "Connect the World" with Becky Anderson is up next.
I'll see you tomorrow.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:00:00]
END
