Do I Have To?
The tent had been set up like the inside of a luxury hotel room, right down to a television screen playing a fake city street view behind closed curtains.
It would only be in the edge of the view, but it gave a directionality to the lighting in the room, which Karl assumed would make it feel more natural for the viewers at home. To him, it was just too obviously unnatural.
For one, his vision was as sharp as Hawk's. Secondly, he had gotten so used to the echolocation and thermal imaging being overlaid on everything he looked at, that it was very obvious there was a television behind the curtains.
But then they turned on all the professional lighting, and it didn't matter anymore. The lighting would be perfect in the video, not natural, so the screen was only there to make it look like a real window.