Can OpenAI's Sora challenge TikTok with artificial videos?

Altman's claim that it could spark creativity seems disingenuous

- PARMY OLSON

Americans living next to vast artificial intelligence (AI) data centres now know what their higher utility bills are paying for: a new social-media time suck.

OpenAI's Sora is essentially the AI version of TikTok. Scan your face and record a few seconds of your voice and then use text prompts to generate videos of you—or a highly realistic, AI generated avatar of you—jumping out of an aeroplane with parakeets or dribbling a soccer ball on Mars. If that sounds to you like a step toward dystopia, you're not alone. The backlash to Sora this week was swift and brutal, calling out OpenAI's hypocrisy in pledging to cure cancer but launching a trough for AI slop instead.

Sam Altman responded in classic slippery fashion on X: En route to noble goals, it was “nice to show people cool new tech,” he tweeted. It's certainly nice when you're on course to burn through $115 billion in cash over the next few years, or when new investors like Nvidia would like to see a return on the $100 billion pledged towards your growth. Sora probably offers the clearest path yet to OpenAI hoovering up some advertising revenue.