Sora
I'm ashamed to admit that a meme on Sora got me to laugh and cry so hard that my head was in pain and I had to close the app. It was Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” but AI replaced the text with the script from the meme of that 4-year-old who can’t describe his dream (“Have you ever had a dream that you, um, you had, your, you— you could, you’ll do, you— you want, you, you could do…” etc.). There is something about seeing a great American orator mumble endlessly that I apparently can’t handle. Technically, I “made” this meme, which makes it worse, like I’m laughing at my own jokes.
What makes Sora an incredibly weird experiment is that, in 10 seconds, anyone can upload their “likeness.” Basically, you spin your head around, you say some words, and you get a photorealistic avatar that you can lend to your friends so they can prompt you into absurd situations. Of course, Sam Altman is one of the default avatars available. 50% of the app is Sam Altman fan fiction. You will find him stealing graphics cards from Target, smoking weed and saying “we’re cooked,” debating Cartman in court, using Pikachu to power a fusion reactor, etc. Also if you like Pikachu, there is now infinite Pikachu content. It is all very dumb, but it is endlessly novel.
This feels like a preview of a culture who only communicates through Superbowl commercial skits. I hope it doesn’t work, but I fear it might. I assume most people are questioning “why would anybody make their likeness public?” The answer is attention. I imagine that, within a week or two, Sam will have the montages and metrics to sway influencers and celebrities. It will be pitched as the new way to engage your audience: “let them create through you.” They know they can’t use the likeness of real people; I wonder if the point of this app (a wrapper over their underlying video model) is to get people to hand over their identity for free.
I am debating if I should delete this from my phone (I don’t allow any feeds on my phone … except Substack), or, if I should lean in, sell my likeness, and write about the consequences. This feels like an essay-worthy moment, but I can’t find the terms and conditions, and I get paranoid when I imagine the possibilities.