Sora, AI Bicycles, and Meta Disruption(stratechery.com)
stratechery.com
Sora, AI Bicycles, and Meta Disruption
https://stratechery.com/2025/sora-ai-bicycles-and-meta-disruption/
55 comments
Arguably not the first time OAI has played fast and loose, didn't Altman preview a voice for the Live feature that was an obvious clone of Scarlet Johansson (a la Her), and they immediately walked it back once she complained? The publicity they got for that stuck around...
They hired an actress that sounded like the AI in Her.
(who is played by Scarlett Johansson)
I think you're right. I must say though, it pleases me to see them playing it a bit loose with copyright. Copyright law is a very polarizing issue, and I think it's important to remember there are multiple sides (copyright holders v. consumers, etc), but as a mostly consumer and part-time producer who has had the copyright sharks go after me for my own content because some algorithm or something made them think it was theirs, I want to see those assholes die in a fire. Small and medium creators are the ones most hurt I think. The giant companies have absolutely weaponized every ounce of the IP laws against everyone else, and it's disgusting to me.
The ability to make videos with public figures / copyrighted fictional characters was taken away in the first few days. Unless you’re referring to the few public figures that signed up in the app and set themselves to public.
You could make them with public figures that aren’t alive any more for a day or two longer, but those get blocked now, too.
That said: I think you’re ultimately right, it’s just that it’s more of a past tense thing. My primary remaining fun use case is to push as close to the guardrails as possible to make embarrassing funny videos of my friends and family members, who are doing the same to me.
You could make them with public figures that aren’t alive any more for a day or two longer, but those get blocked now, too.
That said: I think you’re ultimately right, it’s just that it’s more of a past tense thing. My primary remaining fun use case is to push as close to the guardrails as possible to make embarrassing funny videos of my friends and family members, who are doing the same to me.
Every single video I’ve seen from Sora has been a real person or IP. Stephen Hawking skateboaring, Diddy, Sam Altman shoplifting. They might have blocked it fast but those first few days of videos are still going viral and what everyone knows Sora for.
If you can’t generate videos of real people or movie characters getting arrested or doing insane things, no one is going to care about Sora anymore.
If you can’t generate videos of real people or movie characters getting arrested or doing insane things, no one is going to care about Sora anymore.
>that’s why I think open-source models will still come out ahead in the long term
In what data centers would these open models be run such that copyright laws will not apply?
Serious question. Trying to figure all this out.
Is it that you think people will run the models on their own laptops or phones? Or will there be some offshore municipality where the models can be served from that is out of the reach of copyright laws? Do you have another idea in mind entirely? How are you thinking on all this?
In what data centers would these open models be run such that copyright laws will not apply?
Serious question. Trying to figure all this out.
Is it that you think people will run the models on their own laptops or phones? Or will there be some offshore municipality where the models can be served from that is out of the reach of copyright laws? Do you have another idea in mind entirely? How are you thinking on all this?
You should look up the local llama and stable diffusion sub Reddits to see what is possible to do locally. If you have 24gb of vram you can do A LOT!
Who is going to pay to train these "open source models" and why?
Based on what goes on at Civitai: Horny people, mostly, and because horny people, mostly
I don’t know about the “why” but Alibaba is definitely paying to train open weight models (https://huggingface.co/Wan-AI)
I wonder if someone can figure out how to leverage 100,000,000 volunteers donating a dollar of compute electricity to train these models.
Doesn’t that simplify down to just donating a dollar?
It does not. The $1 of electricity can be simplified to just a $1
However, the way the parent worded it ie $1 of compute electricity - requires the compute to exist and temporarily be loaned. Otherwise “just a $1” would require a massive capex to buy/build compute.
However, the way the parent worded it ie $1 of compute electricity - requires the compute to exist and temporarily be loaned. Otherwise “just a $1” would require a massive capex to buy/build compute.
Business idea: disrupt all these apps by creating an agent that watches all the brainrot for us so we all get our stolen attentions back.
Ben’s original take about 1% of users being creators might end up being right eventually
Consider the Studio Ghibli phenomenon. It was fun to create and share photos of your loved ones in Ghibli aesthetics until that novelty wore off
Video models arguably have a lot more novelty to juice. But they will eventually get boring once you have explored the usually finite latent space of interesting content
Consider the Studio Ghibli phenomenon. It was fun to create and share photos of your loved ones in Ghibli aesthetics until that novelty wore off
Video models arguably have a lot more novelty to juice. But they will eventually get boring once you have explored the usually finite latent space of interesting content
IMO, Ben Thomson has great takes but this one is too over-indexed on the current SORA hype. Sure, a lot of people are downloading it and actively using it for creating videos/memes, but just like the Studio Ghibli phenomenon, interest will die down in a month or two.
Dude is drinking the koolaid for sure. Did you see his take on Meta's Vibes? It was so embarrassing.
For a moment I thought this article would be about AI autopiloting bicycles, so the user only needs to tread the pedals (an idea I once had, and hence why I followed the link).
Was excited to see Ben Thompson get on the pelicans-on-bicycles bandwagon, but alas, not quite the AI bicycles he was talking about.
China will release a video model that has no copyright guardrails and they will eat Sora's lunch.
That's already been a thing for a while now. Wan [1] released in conjunction with Alibaba, and Hunyuan [2] from Tencent.
[1] https://github.com/Wan-Video/Wan2.2
[2] https://github.com/Tencent-Hunyuan/HunyuanVideo
[1] https://github.com/Wan-Video/Wan2.2
[2] https://github.com/Tencent-Hunyuan/HunyuanVideo
Copyright of Winnie the Pooh may be safe however
I am quite disappointed to see even Ben displaying an absolute lack of critical thinking about the disturbing trend of creating new AI algorithmic feeds apps.
This piece reads as very detached from actual societal and economic implications.
As someone in media, I'm also profoundly disappointed at how giddily some colleagues just have jumped on this disturbing horror bandwagon. It's your craft and livelihood they're playing with, ffs!!!
I spend way too much time on short videos on Instagram and TikTok. I've got Sora and I've tried a bunch of times and I'm just baffled by its success so far.
First of all I almost never use these video services with the sound on. I know I'm not the only one, because many services have captions on by default. Sora doesn't seem to have a solution for this yet.
Second, I have almost no desire to see videos with @Sama cameos. I get served a bunch of them every time. Along with MLK, Lincoln, Kennedy etc. @Sama isn't funny to me, and raping the likenesses of some of those figures doesn't really work for me.
Third, there's not enough creativity and range in the videos. I see way too many of the same videos over and over and over. The riffs on the 1980s/90s TV commercial with the kid opening the sucky Christmas present. Ok, maybe there's a small iota of humor once or twice, but not enough to sustain endless remixes of the same thing.
I also hate just about all Jim Carrey films (except maybe the Truman Show) but many other people seem to love them. Perhaps Sora just isn't for me.
First of all I almost never use these video services with the sound on. I know I'm not the only one, because many services have captions on by default. Sora doesn't seem to have a solution for this yet.
Second, I have almost no desire to see videos with @Sama cameos. I get served a bunch of them every time. Along with MLK, Lincoln, Kennedy etc. @Sama isn't funny to me, and raping the likenesses of some of those figures doesn't really work for me.
Third, there's not enough creativity and range in the videos. I see way too many of the same videos over and over and over. The riffs on the 1980s/90s TV commercial with the kid opening the sucky Christmas present. Ok, maybe there's a small iota of humor once or twice, but not enough to sustain endless remixes of the same thing.
I also hate just about all Jim Carrey films (except maybe the Truman Show) but many other people seem to love them. Perhaps Sora just isn't for me.
How old are you ? Kids will grow up with these techs like we grew up with TV and early consoles, they'll love it and see it as a baseline.
I don't understand tiktok at all, but when I go for my daily walks I see groups of kids (10-15) standing on benches in groups of 3-5, each of them doomscrolling on their phone, kids walking while scrolling (and the permanent deformed neck that come with it), it's the norm not the exception.
I don't understand tiktok at all, but when I go for my daily walks I see groups of kids (10-15) standing on benches in groups of 3-5, each of them doomscrolling on their phone, kids walking while scrolling (and the permanent deformed neck that come with it), it's the norm not the exception.
> I also hate just about all Jim Carrey films (except maybe the Truman Show) but many other people seem to love them. Perhaps Sora just isn't for me.
What do you think about Cable Guy? It is essentially a somewhat social realist movie about the total nightmare of having a typical Jim Carrey character in your life. You might like it.
What do you think about Cable Guy? It is essentially a somewhat social realist movie about the total nightmare of having a typical Jim Carrey character in your life. You might like it.
It's an MVP with very little creative diversity. But I like the concept of being able to write "change the background to the inside of a circus tent" or "replace the hat with a fedora" and a minute later my own spin is added as a "remix"
This might be controversial, but I genuinely love AI-generated “video slop”. Hear me out for a second: I’m utterly exhausted by influencers peddling their endless “buy this crap” content. Honestly, the AI slop often feels more creative, less salesy and refreshingly free of performative perfection.
But Meta knows AI slop poses a problem for their business model. When anyone can churn out engaging content without needing perfect lighting, a six-figure ad deal, or even a face or voice, there’s little incentive for users to stay locked into the influencer-driven attention economy that fuels Meta’s ad revenue. They don’t just want your attention, they want it monetized. And right now, AI slop is too democratic to profit from.
But Meta knows AI slop poses a problem for their business model. When anyone can churn out engaging content without needing perfect lighting, a six-figure ad deal, or even a face or voice, there’s little incentive for users to stay locked into the influencer-driven attention economy that fuels Meta’s ad revenue. They don’t just want your attention, they want it monetized. And right now, AI slop is too democratic to profit from.
My friends and I have been having a blast coming up with hilarious situations to put ourselves in. Will it get old, maybe, but new features might keep it fresh.
Is your AI writing HN comments for you too now?
AI is a business. Almost everyone putting it out is trying to exploit the influencer-driven attention economy and monetize their content. AI isn't difficult to profit from because it's too "democratic" - anyone can already participate without perfect lighting and a six figure ad deal most people do - it's difficult to profit from because it isn't compelling or interesting to most people.
It just hasn’t been optimized yet because it’s so new
I'm not sure I completely understand what you're saying.
Are people locked into the influencer economy because of the "polish" of the videos?
I feel like people are more locked into consumerism, and this is just the cheapest channel of delivery.
Won't much of the AI slop just become, or try to become the influencer itself?
Are people locked into the influencer economy because of the "polish" of the videos?
I feel like people are more locked into consumerism, and this is just the cheapest channel of delivery.
Won't much of the AI slop just become, or try to become the influencer itself?
> Are people locked into the influencer economy because of the "polish" of the videos?
Yes. Influencers with big production and marketing budgets will usually create more content that has the "wow" factor. With AI people can add the same "wow" factor in their videos with little to no budget. This should slowly erode the value of a platform like Instagram as AI content gets better.
Yes. Influencers with big production and marketing budgets will usually create more content that has the "wow" factor. With AI people can add the same "wow" factor in their videos with little to no budget. This should slowly erode the value of a platform like Instagram as AI content gets better.
Why would it devalue the platform? The more time people spend watching, the more attention that can be monetized. More content, or higher quality content, or content produced more cheap does not detract deon that?
The algorithms will pick winners anyway, and can shape things into the familiar power law of popularity, if that is the desired mode. People parasocial needs can be exploited by human creators to differentiate from AI generated content.
Modern social media is like a casino, the house always wins.
Agreed. All content eventually optimizes for clicks -> monetization, which is typically dictated by the platforms' algorithms. That's why things end up looking the same over time as that's what people are creating content to optimize for.
> Are people locked into the influencer economy because of the "polish" of the videos?
> I feel like people are more locked into consumerism, and this is just the cheapest channel of delivery.
Don't forget parasocial relationship
Don't forget parasocial relationship
I'm not sure it's fair to separate "AI Slop" with "Buy my crap" marketing.
People will monetize one way or another. It may be more or less explicit with AI slop.
Additionally, I would challenge "AI slop posing a problem": AI Agents and automation of content keeps people engaged inside of a platform, inside of a niche. A democratization may lead to more expensive ad space.
Meta can certainly assist in creating slop and maintaining conversational salespersons
People will monetize one way or another. It may be more or less explicit with AI slop.
Additionally, I would challenge "AI slop posing a problem": AI Agents and automation of content keeps people engaged inside of a platform, inside of a niche. A democratization may lead to more expensive ad space.
Meta can certainly assist in creating slop and maintaining conversational salespersons
> Meta can certainly assist in creating slop and maintaining conversational salespersons
They absolutely can and you could’ve said the same about Stack Overflow or Quora. But in the end those platforms fizzled once AI began to democratize the creation of “good-enough” answers. The same trajectory likely awaits Instagram as AI-generated videos reach parity with user-made ones, the distinction between creator and consumer will blur. The shift is inevitable if the technology doesn't hit a wall.
Maybe companies like OpenAI will make even more money by licensing the technology that keeps us entertained, but the influencer economy will eventually collapse. I’m not saying what’s coming is necessarily better, I’m just saying Meta’s platforms are in for a rough ride.
They absolutely can and you could’ve said the same about Stack Overflow or Quora. But in the end those platforms fizzled once AI began to democratize the creation of “good-enough” answers. The same trajectory likely awaits Instagram as AI-generated videos reach parity with user-made ones, the distinction between creator and consumer will blur. The shift is inevitable if the technology doesn't hit a wall.
Maybe companies like OpenAI will make even more money by licensing the technology that keeps us entertained, but the influencer economy will eventually collapse. I’m not saying what’s coming is necessarily better, I’m just saying Meta’s platforms are in for a rough ride.
I believe Stack Overflow and Quora were screwed because chatbot interfaces became the new entrypoint. _If_ Instagram/TikTok/YouTube manage to stay the place people go habitually, then I think they will benefit, not be harmed. But there are probably many ways to step wrong here. There is a bit of an innovators dilemma for the platforms that currently relies on human produced content. If I were them, I would fund 2-3 new/separate efforts to be able to experiment while not immediately killing the current golden goose.
Only difference is soon you'll have Mickey Mouse tell you (and your children) to buy same old crap that the influencers were shilling.
Big Tech will find a way of ruining it for you.
AI slop and influencer peddling can both be bad at the same time. The answer is to get off facebook/instagram, not to replace one awful thing with another awful thing that also happens to boil the oceans.
Writer fundamentally mistakes the evolution of communication as ascending through bottlenecks when in reality, our communication is bottlenecked at very indirect perception across units and formats, none of which provide good, sensible signal sharing. So Sora simply represents another lossy, calamitous descent into bottleneck upon bottleneck.
OpenAI knew that, played fast and loose with IP laws because… they wanted that bit of popularity to impress investors or something… then the lawyers got nervous and now they’re dialing it back down.
It’s a trick they can pull once but that’s it.
I suspect the more limited it inevitably becomes due to lawyers being lawyers, the more its popularity will wane.
Ironically enough, that’s why I think open-source models will still come out ahead in the long term. People really want to make videos with Pikachu in them.