Sora AI is a hyperrealistic artificial intelligence that can generate videos of almost anything. In its current deployment, Sora Pro is only available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro users, with early access controls limiting how many and what kinds of videos humans or copyrighted content can appear. Upon its release on the app store, Sora has sparked controversy over its ethical, entertainment and legal implications.
Another major concern was the various copyright issues. Sora may improperly use works unless rights holders explicitly opt out. OpenAI responded by proposing revenue sharing and usage permissions, but critics say these policies are still vague.
Sora also inherits biases and stereotypes from training data. A WIRED investigation found that its outputs reinforce gender, racial and ability stereotypes. One example is with prompts that depict the leader of some group or country. Almost all of the leaders on Sora were depicted as men. This can be a major problem in the future as artificial intelligence like Sora advances.
In the long term, Sora could completely reshape entertainment, advertising, education and social media by making professional video creation accessible to anyone.
Due to Sora AI’s user-friendly interface, it is a practical and functional tool to many. “It is very easy for Sora to generate the videos but you may have to redo the prompt to get exactly what you are looking for,” senior Ethan Freckleton said. The method of adding prompts for the videos is similar to how ChatGPT and other generative AI function which allows the AI to generate things that are ultra specific and detailed. The accessibility and ease of use of Sora allows people to generate deepfakes.
One immediate societal effect is accelerating the use of deepfakes. Sora lets users freely embed people or copyrighted characters into scenes, greatly increasing the spread of misinformation, defamation and potentially identity fraud. The blurred boundary between real and AI generated content could destroy trust in the media. “I’ve seen countless Sora AI videos on TikTok that used Jake Paul and if it weren’t for the watermark I would have had no way of knowing it was fake,” senior Vrayas Pila said. The watermark Sora has can be removed by other AI platforms so the misinformation will only spread more as time goes on.
A major concern linked with Sora is the endangerment of the value of art and creativity. Sora is able to replicate videos and art just from the use of prompts. This allows people with no artistic ability to generate art which can look as good as professionals. This could be detrimental to the creativity of society. “AI will affect media as more content becomes AI slop which will ruin how we view content” Freckleton said. As of right now the AI has enough flaws that generated prompts can be easily spotted, but once it is perfected, AI could become most of the media consumed.
In the long term, Sora could completely reshape entertainment, advertising, education and social media by making professional video creation accessible to anyone. Using Sora, however, comes with risks: misinformation, ruining of creativity and ethical issues around privacy and people’s identities.
