The three big unanswered questions about Sora

In this still from the Sora 2 promotional video, an ai-generated cameo of Sam Altman shows us through worlds of generated content. Last week OpenAI released Sora, a TikTok-style app that presents an endless feed of exclusively AI-generated videos, each up to 10 seconds long. The app allows you to create a "cameo" of yourself--a hyperrealistic avatar that mimics your appearance and voice--and insert other peoples' cameos into your own videos (depending on what permissions they set). To some people who believed earnestly in OpenAI's promise to build AI that benefits all of humanity, the app is a punchline. A former OpenAI researcher who left to build an AI-for-science startup referred to Sora as an "infinite AI tiktok slop machine." That hasn't stopped it from soaring to the top spot on Apple's US App Store.