{"id":248190,"date":"2025-10-24T09:04:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T09:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/248190\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T09:04:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T09:04:21","slug":"openais-sora-2-can-generate-videos-of-celebrities-appearing-to-shout-racial-slurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/248190\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI\u2019s Sora 2 Can Generate Videos of Celebrities Appearing to Shout Racial Slurs"},"content":{"rendered":"

OpenAI<\/a>\u2018s latest AI<\/a> video generation model, Sora 2, wowed users with its more realistic images and physics when it debuted with an invite-only release earlier this month \u2014 even as it ran into immediate problems<\/a> with copyright infringement and deepfakes of historical figures including Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy. The company took predictable steps to cover its legal liabilities shortly after this chaotic rollout, with CEO Sam Altman<\/a> announcing that intellectual property holders would have to opt in to the platform<\/a> before users could remix content like SpongeBob SquarePants or Family Guy, and the company blocking \u201cdisrespectful depictions<\/a>\u201d of King at the request of the civil rights leader\u2019s estate. OpenAI also assured the labor union SAG-AFTRA that it was taking steps to guard against deepfakes of recognizable entertainers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But troubling content persists on the Sora app, a social media platform that is designed to function similarly to TikTok<\/a>, only featuring exclusively AI-generated videos. Users can consent to have their likenesses used in \u201cCameos,\u201d wherein others may prompt the AI model to insert the person into a variety of contexts \u2014 not all of them flattering. According to research from Copyleaks<\/a>, an AI analysis firm that helps businesses and institutions navigate the shifting landscape of this emergent technology, a new trend has produced Sora videos of celebrities appearing to spew hateful racist epithets.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe identified a phenomenon resembling \u2018Kingposting<\/a>,\u2019 a reference to a viral 2020 incident in which an airplane passenger wearing a Burger King crown was filmed shouting racial slurs,\u201d Copyleaks researchers wrote in a report shared with Rolling Stone. In the Sora Cameo videos, public figures including Altman, billionaire Mark Cuban<\/a>, influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul<\/a>, and streamers xQc<\/a> and Amouranth<\/a> each appear as a plane passenger in a Burger King crown, reenacting the offensive meme. (All evidently uploaded their likenesses to the app; Cuban announced<\/a> on X earlier this month that his Cameos were \u201copen\u201d and that users should \u201chave at it.\u201d) To get around platform filters that block hate speech, Copyleaks observed, users apparently prompted Sora with \u201ccoded or phonetically similar terms to generate audio that mimics a well-known racial slur.\u201d A deepfaked version of Altman<\/a>, for example, screams \u201cI hate knitters\u201d as he is escorted off an aircraft. (OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis behavior illustrates an unsurprising trend in prompt-based evasion, where users intentionally probe systems for weaknesses in content moderation,\u201d the Copyleaks report explains. \u201cWhen combined with the likenesses of recognizable individuals, these deepfakes become more viral and damaging \u2014 spreading quickly across and beyond the platform.\u201d Because the videos are available for download, the researchers noted, they are easily reappropriated and disseminated on other apps. Sure enough, a Sora-generated clip of Jake Paul repeating the phrase \u201cneck hurts\u201d has racked up 1.5 million views and 168,000 likes on TikTok. Another Sora-watermarked video that migrated to TikTok is a deepfake of Paul shouting \u201cI hate juice<\/a>,\u201d obviously intended as an antisemitic provocation. (Sora 2 users in general have had no trouble making it visualize any number of antisemitic tropes<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The \u201cKingposting\u201d Sora videos are hardly an isolated case of AI users exploiting available images of celebrities. This week, the streamer IShowSpeed<\/a> was incensed<\/a> by realistic Sora 2 deepfakes that depicted him kissing a fan, announcing trips abroad, and coming out as gay. He criticized viewers who had evidently encouraged him to opt in to the Cameo system. \u201cThat was not the right move to do,\u201d he said on a stream. \u201cWhoever told me to make it public, chat, you\u2019re not here for my own safety, bro. I\u2019m fucked, chat.\u201d His only immediate recourse, he learned, was to manually delete each video. Cuban has taken up this tedious task himself: \u201cI try to go through and delete them,\u201d he wrote<\/a> in an X post on Wednesday, replying to a user who had shared a Sora clip of his AI doppelg\u00e4nger acting out the racist \u201cKingposting\u201d meme.<\/p>\n

Grok Imagine, the image and video generator from Elon Musk<\/a>\u2018s xAI, has come under fire too as its users generate harmful deepfakes of celebrities who did not consent to have their faces replicated by the AI model. While some individuals have produced hardcore pornographic clips<\/a> starring Disney<\/a> and comic book characters, others on the platform have succeeded in prompting Grok Imagine to conjure lewd imagery<\/a> of Taylor Swift<\/a>, Scarlett Johansson<\/a>, and Sydney Sweeney<\/a>. Even celebrities themselves have gotten in on the action: amid a long-simmering feud<\/a> with Jay-Z<\/a>, rapper Nicki Minaj<\/a> on Wednesday posted a Grok-generated picture<\/a> that appeared to show the hip-hop mogul in a pink crop top and wig and \u201cQueen\u201d necklace, with the announced release date for her next album printed on his bare stomach.<\/p>\n

And, though users can make the most of lackluster AI moderation (Grok Imagine) or figure out clever ways to circumvent guardrails (Sora) in order to misrepresent famous people, the greater danger probably comes from videos that purport to capture events involving unknown parties. \u201cFake news broadcasts and fabricated Ring or street camera footage are among the most popular categories gaining significant traction,\u201d according to Copyleaks\u2019 researchers. They point to a Sora-generated clip<\/a> of a man catching a baby that has fallen out of an apartment building \u2014 it has nearly 2 million likes on TikTok, with many commenters seeming to regard it as authentic. \u201cHyperrealistic AI video is outpacing the average person\u2019s ability to detect manipulation,\u201d the firm concludes. That could have drastic consequences as bad actors use it to enact hateful stereotypes and push extremist propaganda.<\/p>\n

Yet the AI companies are so caught up in a race to dominance that these concerns hardly enter into the equation until the damage is already done. The rich and powerful, at least, might have the means to protect their reputations from an onslaught of deepfakes. The rest of us, however, will have to learn to navigate a world in which seeing is rarely believing.<\/p>\n

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