Dead celebrities are apparently fair game for Sora 2 video manipulation

When OpenAI launched the Sora 2 video generator last week, the company wrote that it was taking measures to "block depictions of public figures" by default. But creators and viewers of Sora 2 videos are finding that prohibition has a rather large loophole, allowing for videos of public figures that happen to be dead.

Examples of celebrities being posthumously inserted into Sora 2 video creations are not hard to find all over social media these days. Tupac Shakur chatting with Malcolm X. Bruce Lee running a "dragon energy" DJ set. Michael Jackson doing kitchen-based standup comedy. Stephen Hawking's wheelchair wiping out on a giant skateboard ramp. Mister Rogers doing a cameo on Jackass. Kurt Cobain stealing KFC chicken fingers. Martin Luther King Jr. stuttering through a major speech. The list goes on and on.

OpenAI places a moving Sora watermark over each generated video, which limits the risk of viewers being fooled by fake footage of real people. Still, seeing these deceased celebrities used as props by an AI tool can obviously be upsetting to their living relatives and fans.

"Please stop sending me AI videos of dad," Zelda Williams said in a since-deleted Instagram story Monday (archived here), referring to her late father Robin Williams. "Stop believing I wanna see it or that I'll understand, I don't and I won't... It's dumb, it's a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it's NOT what he'd want."

The reference to what the late Williams would have wanted is important here. OpenAI notes that living users, including public figures, can opt in to Sora 2's "cameos" feature by scanning their own face with a smartphone to "drop yourself straight into any Sora scene with remarkable fidelity." OpenAI promises that cameo users "are in control of your likeness end-to-end" and that the feature is designed "to ensure that your audio and image likeness are used with your consent." Cameo users can also revoke access to their scanned images at any time and have moderation control over other videos created with that scan.