Mark Duplass on AI anxiety in ‘The Morning Show’ season 4

The Morning Show is back for another season.

Season 4 picks up almost two years after the events of season 3, with the UBA-NBN merger fully complete and the newsroom grappling with truth in an increasingly polarized America.

Mark Duplass plays Chip, the former executive producer of the fictional news program The Morning Show. He told ABC Audio this new season reflects what is happening in the real world, just like the three seasons that came before it.

“We’re experiencing an incredible amount of anxiety about what’s real and what’s not with the advent of AI into the news world,” Duplass said.

He cited deepfake celebrity videos — like “those early deepfake videos of Bill Hader as he turned into Tom Cruise” and artificial intelligence-generated advertisements as real-life inspiration for season 4.

“How are we going to know what is real and what is not? And the disruptors are gonna be able to manipulate this in an incredible way,” Duplass said. “That was one storyline when I saw it in the opening episode where I thought, ‘Well, this is really interesting,’ because this is gonna be a major issue for us as we look at journalistic integrity and who can we trust in the next few years.”

As for his character, Chip is out of the newsroom this season with “a chance to live a more well-balanced life” when Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) brings him a story that he can’t get out of his head, he said.

“I think that Chip misses being stressed out,” Duplass said. “Chip misses being under the gun, and Chip misses fighting for something that he thinks is important and that he believes in, and that being the truth and journalistic integrity.”

The Morning Show season 4 premieres Wednesday on Apple TV+.

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