OpenAI’s new social app is filled with terrifying Sam Altman deepfakes

Summary

In a video on OpenAI’s new TikTok-like social media app Sora, a never-ending factory farm of pink pigs are grunting and snorting in their pens — each is equipped with a feeding trough and a smartphone screen, which plays a feed of vertical videos. A terrifyingly realistic Sam Altman stares directly at the camera, as though he’s making direct eye contact with the viewer. The AI-generated Altman asks, “Are my piggies enjoying their slop?” This is what it’s like using the Sora app, less than 24 hours after it was launched to the public in an invite-only early access period. In the next video on Sora’s For You feed, Altman appears again. This time, he’s standing in a field of Pokémon, where creatures like Pikachu, Bulbasaur, and a sort of half-baked Growlithe are frolicking through the grass. The OpenAI CEO looks at the camera and says, “I hope Nintendo doesn’t sue us.” Then, there are many more fantastical yet realistic scenes, which often feature Altman himself. He serves Pikachu and Eric Cartman drinks at Starbucks. He screams at a customer from behind the counter at a McDonald’s. He steals NVIDIA GPUs from a Target and runs away, only to get caught and beg the police not to take his precious technology. VIDEO People on Sora who generate videos of Altman are especially getting a kick out of how blatantly OpenAI appears to be violating copyright laws. (Sora will reportedly require copyright holders to opt out of their content’s use — reversing the typical approach where creators must explicitly agree to such use — the legality of which is debatable.) “This content may violate our guardrails concerning third-party likeness,” AI Altman says in one video, echoing the notice that appears after submitting some prompts to generate real celebrities or characters. Then, he bursts into hysterical laughter as though he knows what he’s saying is nonsense — the app is filled with videos of Pikachu doing ASMR, Naruto ordering Krabby Patties, and Mario smoking weed. This wouldn’t b...