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Is Sora the beginning of the end for OpenAI?

calnewport.com

101–110 of 207 posts

Re: Is Sora the beginning of the end for OpenAI?

#101

I'm more concerned about Sora (and video-generating AI in general) being the final pour that cements us into our post-truth world. People will be swayed by AI-generated videos while also being convinced real videos are AI. I'm kinda terrified of the future of politics.

> the final pour that cements us into our post-truth world.

I find it a bit more concerning that anyone would not already understand how deeply we exist in a "post-truth" world. Every piece of information we've consumed for the last few decades has increasingly been shaped by algorithms optimizing someone else's target.

But the real danger of post-truth is when there is a still enough of a veneer of truth that you can use distortions to effectively manipulate the public. Losing that veneer is essentially a collapse of the whole system, which will have consequences I don't think we can really understand.

The pre and early days of social media were riddled with various "leaks" of private photos and video. But what does it mean to leak a nude photo of a celebrity when you can just as easily generate a photo that is indistinguishable? The entire reason leaks like that were so popular is precisely because people wanted a glimpse into something real about the private life of these screen personalities (otherwise 'leaks' and 'nude scenes' would have the same value). As image generation reaches the limit, it will be impossible to ever really distinguish between voyeurism and imagination.

Similarly we live in an age of mass surveillance, but what does surveillance footage mean when it can be trivially faked. Think of how radicalizing surveillance footage has been over the past few decades. Consider for example the video of the Rodney King beating. Increasingly such a video could not be trusted.

> I'm kinda terrified of the future of politics.

If you aren't already terrified enough of the present of politics, then I wouldn't be worried about what Sora brings us tomorrow. I honestly think what we'll see soon is not increasingly more powerful authoritarian systems, but the break down of systems of control everywhere. As these systems over-extend themselves they will collapse. The peak of social media power was to not let it go further than it was a few years ago, Sora represents a larger breakdown of these systems of control.

Re: Is Sora the beginning of the end for OpenAI?

#102
post #77

Any Llm generation tools are spam generation tools. AI-slop === Spam. How big is the market for spam again?

This isn't even remotely true. In its current iteration, it's one of the best jumping-off points for getting up to speed on the basics of a new topic.

So is spam if you only need a summarized version of the financial difficulties of princes in Nigeria. Or the kinds of people doctors can’t stand.

Your jumping off point is a cliff into a pile of leaves. It looks correct and comfy but will hurt your butt taking it for granted. You’re telling people to jump and saying “it’ll get better eventually just keep jumping and ignore the pain!”

Re: Is Sora the beginning of the end for OpenAI?

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was predicted to be next: AGI What we got next: porn

Porn has driven everyday tech. Online payment systems, broadband adoption. Porn (visual and written erotic impression) has been a normal part of the human experience for thousands of years. Across different religions, cultures, technological capabilities. We're humans. There will always be a market for it, wherever there is a mismatch between desire for and access to sexual activity. Generate your own porn is definit…

This is a meme I see online often (and in the show Silicon Valley), but I don't think it holds up in practice.

Re: payment systems, Visa and MC are notoriously unfriendly to porn vendors, sending them into the arms of crooked payment processors like Wirecard. Paypal grew to prominence because it was once the only way to buy and sell on Ebay. Crypto went from nerd hobby to speculative asset, shipping the "medium of exchange for porn purchases" entirely.

As for broadband adoption, it's as likely to have occurred for MP3 piracy and being 200X faster than dialup, as it was for porn.

Re: Is Sora the beginning of the end for OpenAI?

#104

I'm more concerned about Sora (and video-generating AI in general) being the final pour that cements us into our post-truth world. People will be swayed by AI-generated videos while also being convinced real videos are AI. I'm kinda terrified of the future of politics.

> the final pour that cements us into our post-truth world. I find it a bit more concerning that anyone would not already understand how deeply we exist in a "post-truth" world. Every piece of information we've consumed for the last few decades has increasingly been shaped by algorithms optimizing someone else's target. But the real danger of post-truth is when there is a still enough of a veneer of truth that you ca…

Agreed, but this is mostly coming from people who would normally discredit you bashing MSM as a kook/conspiracy theorist.

People forget, or didn’t see, all the staged catastrophes in the 90s that were shortly afterwards pulled off the channel once someone pointed out something obvious (f.e. dolls instead of human victims, wrong location footage, and so on).

But if you were there, and if you saw that, and then saw them pull it off and pretend like it didn’t happen for rest of the day, then this AI thing is a nothing burger.

Re: Is Sora the beginning of the end for OpenAI?

#105

"Whether Sora lasts or not, however, is somewhat beside the point. What catches my attention most is that OpenAI released this app in the first place. It wasn’t that long ago that Sam Altman was still comparing the release of GPT-5 to the testing of the first atomic bomb , and many commentators took Dario Amodei at his word when he proclaimed 50% of white collar jobs might soon be automated by LLM-based tools." That'…

We were promised AGI and all we are getting is Bob Ross coloring on the walls of a Target store.

The app is fun to use for about 10 minutes then that is it.

Same goes for Grok imagine. All people want to do is generate NSFW content.

What happened to improving the world?

Re: Is Sora the beginning of the end for OpenAI?

#106

I'm more concerned about Sora (and video-generating AI in general) being the final pour that cements us into our post-truth world. People will be swayed by AI-generated videos while also being convinced real videos are AI. I'm kinda terrified of the future of politics.

Or people will just stop believing random things they see online. You are underestimating people imo.

Re: Is Sora the beginning of the end for OpenAI?

#107

"Whether Sora lasts or not, however, is somewhat beside the point. What catches my attention most is that OpenAI released this app in the first place. It wasn’t that long ago that Sam Altman was still comparing the release of GPT-5 to the testing of the first atomic bomb , and many commentators took Dario Amodei at his word when he proclaimed 50% of white collar jobs might soon be automated by LLM-based tools." That'…

What was predicted to be next: AGI What we got next: porn

At least the valuations make sense now. ;)

Re: Is Sora the beginning of the end for OpenAI?

#108
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The way people dealt with it was witness testimony and physical evidence. Which are inapplicable today. > We will adjust Will we? Maybe years later... per event. It's finally now dawning on the majority of Britons that Brexit was a mistake they were lied about.

Brexit is a great example how you can just lie by writing stuff on the side of a bus, no fake photos or videos required

Exactly, it proves how easy it is to influence people. Which would be even easier with fake photos and videos.

Re: Is Sora the beginning of the end for OpenAI?

#109

OpenAI is steering significant amounts of traffic away from Google and ChatGPT is a fairly common name that extends beyond awareness of the company (or even what the word it means specifically). Not nearly on the level of "Kleenex" or "Google" as a term, but impressive given that other companies have spent decades trying to make a similar dent.

So what though? At best they will stuff it with ads like Google has done and become what is basically Bing w/ Copilot. That isn't going to pay back the $500 billion or however much they're trying to raise.

Re: Is Sora the beginning of the end for OpenAI?

#110

I'm more concerned about Sora (and video-generating AI in general) being the final pour that cements us into our post-truth world. People will be swayed by AI-generated videos while also being convinced real videos are AI. I'm kinda terrified of the future of politics.

The problem is that we're already post truth. Just consider how a screenshot of a tweet or made-up headline already spreads like a wildfire: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1980221072512635117 Sora involves far more work than what is required to spread misinfo. Finally, people don't really care about the truth. They care about things that confirm their world view, or comfortable things. Or they dismiss things that are…

Oh well, I’ll put it out there. If people cared about verified provable truths, religion of any kind wouldn’t exist.
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