Barry\u2019s Sarah Goldberg<\/a>) \u2013 into giving him insider-trading tips from her other powerful clients. The pair are soon engulfed in a scandal over fraudulent stock pumping. It\u2019s a familiar-sounding storyline. \u201cElon got into trouble for market manipulation,\u201d says Glatzer. \u201cIt\u2019s like Duncan says in the show: \u2018It\u2019s not a felony in Silicon Valley, it\u2019s good hustle.\u2019 That\u2019s the mentality here. Laws are for morons, not us.\u201d<\/p>\nReal world echoes are everywhere in The Audacity. The search engine of choice is called Spookle (slogan: \u201cYou Agreed to This\u201d). A corporation called Cupertino is a thinly veiled reference to Apple, while its mythical boss \u201cBig Tim\u201d nods to Tim Cook. Are any of Glatzer\u2019s characters directly based on real-life figures? \u201cThe truth is, I don\u2019t find any of them worthy of a three-dimensional character that could go the distance of multiple seasons,\u201d says Glatzer. \u201cThey\u2019re interesting enough for a film like The Social Reckoning but not much more.\u201d<\/p>\n
In cahoots \u2026 Sarah Goldberg as JoAnne Felder. Photograph: David Moir\/AMC<\/p>\n
Indeed, Magnussen can currently be seen in The Social Reckoning as a Meta spin doctor. Is this his tech bro era? \u201cAI is the most pressing issue of our time,\u201d he says. \u201cIt affects our planet, our politics, our mental health, everything. Technology can do wonderful things but once it starts dividing us or swaying elections, it\u2019s deeply damaging.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t understand why people get on board with social media,\u201d sighs Galifianakis. \u201cWe fed these machines for years. Now these machines are going to find us. I don\u2019t believe the promises of AI because I don\u2019t trust the people doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Audacity\u2019s protagonist has been described as \u201chighly punchable\u201d. Magnussen concurs: \u201cYou\u2019ve seen these guys in front of Congress. They\u2019re pretty fucking punchable.\u201d An early episode includes a sequence at a Palo Alto fight club, where nerds whack each other with keyboards and strangle each other with cables. \u201cThat\u2019s real!\u201d laughs Magnussen. \u201cThe tech bro fight club is an actual thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the plentiful real-world parallels, Glatzer has never met a tech mogul. \u201cThat\u2019s fine by me,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t imagine the conversation would be anything other than stage-managed and dishonest. They have people workshopping their handshake and smile, so what am I going to get from that? But I have talked to a number of people who work in the tech world. The first thing they say is: \u2018I\u2019m not like that. That\u2019s those other guys. I\u2019m one of the good ones.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMe too,\u201d says Magnussen. \u201cThe response I get is: \u2018I know that guy!\u2019 It\u2019s always someone else. You want to go: \u2018No, it\u2019s you. You\u2019re that guy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In America\u2019s richest enclave, hi-tech goes hand-in-hand with hippy-dippy. The Audacity lampoons heath fads like ayahuasca ceremonies, microdosing and bio-hacking. \u201cTech titans feel as if they\u2019ve got the golden ticket,\u201d says Glatzer. \u201cThey want their prime to last as long as possible, perhaps for ever. Maybe the singularity comes when they upload themselves into an AI consciousness and become gods. I don\u2019t have proof of that being the reason why so many datacentres are being built by these guys \u2013 but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s uninvolved.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no limit to these people\u2019s overreach,\u201d agrees Magnussen. \u201cThey truly believe their life is more valuable than anyone else\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trying to play God \u2026 Simon Helberg in The Audacity. Photograph: Ed Araquel \/ AMC\/HBO<\/p>\n
The show also skewers the hypocrisy of execs who ban their own offspring from smartphones, reasoning that \u201carms dealers don\u2019t give their kids landmines\u201d. \u201cIt\u2019s like how a lot of Hollywood don\u2019t have TVs in their houses,\u201d says Galifianakis. \u201cBecause they know the poison they\u2019re selling.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey know the dangers,\u201d nods Glatzer. \u201cIt\u2019s a classic case of capitalism gone haywire. I don\u2019t think they\u2019d live next door to a datacentre either. None of them do what they\u2019re telling us to do. It used to be that people in public life had to practise what they preached. That has quietly gone away. US congresspeople invest in the same tech companies they\u2019re supposedly regulating. Look at what Trump\u2019s doing. It\u2019s a kleptocracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s equally concerned by \u201cscreenification\u201d in schools. \u201cThe amount of information gathered on our kids is frightening,\u201d says Glatzer. \u201cShopping habits, medical history, exam grades. When schools get given tablets in the States, the law says it\u2019s OK for the provider to track that student. We\u2019re handing our kids these screens with the patina of being an educational tool but they are data-collecting devices. Just like everything is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t believe how much information people give up,\u201d says Galifianakis. \u201cIf you go to LA, there\u2019s all these cars that say Google on the side, taking pictures of everything. If those cars said US Government, people would lose their minds. But because it\u2019s a corporation, we all sit back and go: \u2018I guess this is the future.\u2019 I think people are starting to wake up but maybe it\u2019s too late.\u201d He laughs. \u201cWhat do I know? I\u2019m just a dumb actor trying to alarm people. But our children are the new oil. They\u2019re being mined for data.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m most scared for the kids,\u201d agrees Magnussen. \u201cThey\u2019ve been digital since they were born. They\u2019re being manipulated without even knowing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Filling a void \u2026 Magnussen as Park. Photograph: Ed Araquel\/AMC<\/p>\n
In The Audacity, even seemingly benign tech is sinister. Eccentric inventor Martin Phister (The Big Bang Theory\u2019s Simon Helberg) is developing an empathetic bot to be a digital \u201cfriend\u201d for alienated teens. US viewers have likened him to OpenAI\u2019s Sam Altman, who initially presented as a sympathetic mogul.<\/p>\n
\u201cMartin\u2019s trying to do something good,\u201d says Glatzer. \u201cYou later learn that he\u2019s compensating for something very bad. Carl has a speech about his generation coming to a crossroads: \u2018Leave a legacy of good or go full Dr Evil.\u2019 Most choose the latter. They are drawn to doing something positive but they are Hungry Hungry Hippos. They can\u2019t resist the allure of a good deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCarl knew the internet could have been a good thing for society if we\u2019d done it right,\u201d adds Galifianakis. \u201cBut greed and old-fashioned American competition, the need to win, became more important than human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Geeky idealism is long gone. \u201cIt began as a desire to change the world for the better,\u201d says Glatzer. \u201cA bunch of nerdy engineers wore hoodies rather than suits and put \u2018Do No Evil\u2019 slogans on their office walls. That\u2019s all in the rear-view mirror.\u201d<\/p>\n
Glatzer freely admits that his work on Succession informed The Audacity. \u201cThere\u2019s no way that it didn\u2019t. But that was about institutional, dynastic wealth, whereas our characters are self-made. They are Logan Roy as a young man, if he had decided to be a tech guy rather than a media baron. What I certainly gleaned from Jesse Armstrong was finding a tone that enables you to give the establishment some real gut punches. Sarcasm might be the protest of the weak, but that\u2019s all we\u2019ve got. Speaking as a weakling.\u201d<\/p>\n
The invasive cyber-surveillance and data-mining in The Audacity are deeply chilling. \u201cWe consulted experts but all the information is out there,\u201d says Glatzer. \u201cThe Guardian and New York Times do some terrific reporting on AI. It always feels like the journalists secretly want to headline their articles: \u2018Wake the fuck up! This is happening!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The Audacity is on HBO Max now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Showrunner Jonathan Glatzer wanted the tagline of his latest TV creation to be: \u201cWe\u2019re so fucked.\u201d He laughs.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-654005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}