Sora provides better control over videos featuring your AI self

Sora now lets you rein in your AI doubles, giving you more say on how and where deepfake versions of you make an appearance on the app. The update lands as OpenAI hurries to show it actually cares about its users’ concerns as an all-too-predictable tsunami of AI slop threatens to take over the internet. 

The new controls are part of a broader batch of weekend updates meant to stabilize Sora and manage the chaos brewing in its feed. Sora is essentially “a TikTok for deepfakes,” a place to make 10-second videos of pretty much anything, including AI-generated versions of yourself or others (voice included). OpenAI calls these virtual appearances “cameos.” Critics call them a looming misinformation disaster. 

Bill Peebles, who heads the Sora team at OpenAI, said users can now restrict how AI-generated versions of themselves can be used in the app. For example, you could prevent your AI self from appearing in videos involving politics, stop it from saying certain words, or — if you hate mustard — stop it from showing up anywhere near the hellish condiment. 

OpenAI staffer Thomas Dimson said users can also add preferences for their virtual doubles, such as, for example, making them “wear a “#1 Ketchup Fan” ball cap in every video.”   

The safeguards are welcome, but history of AI-powered bots like ChatGPT and Claude offering up tips on explosives, cybercrime, or bioweapons suggests someone, somewhere will probably figure out a way around them. People already have skirted one of Sora’s other safety features, a feeble watermark. Peebles said the company is also “working on” improving that. 

Peebles said Sora will continue “to hillclimb on making restrictions even more robust,” and “will add new ways for you to stay in control” in the future. 

In the week since the app launched, Sora has been complicit in filling the internet with AI-generated slop. The loose cameo controls — pretty much a yes or no to groups like mutuals, people you approve, or “everyone” — were a particular problem. The unwitting star of the platform, none other than OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, illustrated the danger, appearing in a variety of mocking videos that show him stealing, rapping, or even grilling a dead Pikachu.