In SORA we trust! Synthetic truth and other unimportant things.
Image credit: Open Ai
OpenAI just publicly released SORA, its new synthetic ideologies generator, and yes, nothing will ever be the same again.
Yes, we’ll now have the ability to generate high-quality videos from the comfort of our couch, whether for work or to share on social media. We can proudly say that, like all of humanity, we’ve become content creators.
But is that really the purpose of this new technology?
We’d be very naive to think that its greatest impact will be in the creative field. Sure, production companies, brands, and all of Hollywood will save millions and millions of dollars in production costs… and, obviously, salaries.
But wouldn’t it be even more profitable—and powerful—to modify reality and truth with just a simple prompt?
And please, don’t call me a conspiracy theorist, because we’ve all grown up now, and fake news feels almost outdated, like a relic of the past that we rarely revisit when reading the news.
There may still be some people capable of distinguishing between a synthetic video and a real one, like those we used to know, but trust me, artificial intelligence evolves exponentially. The wise of today will also be the fools of tomorrow.
Soon, there will be no way to distinguish between a video of a fascist attacking a young Black man on the streets of New York and one of someone asking a young Black man if he knows a coffee shop with specialty brews in the neighbourhood.
And now, I’ll make up a phrase my grandmother never said: “When the truth doesn’t work in your favor, make it up.”
The power we’ve handed over to OpenAI in exchange for a shiny toy is infinite—not just to them, but also to governments and powerful groups who are keen to tell their version of the truth—or make one up if necessary. Let’s call it Fake News 2.0, to align with the terminology of recent years.
Now I wonder: will we have to go back to trusting traditional media (apologies pending), with live cameras on the scene… or not even that?
Image credit: Open Ai
Truth, post-truth, and the new synthetic-truth will mark the beginning of a new world. A world where we glance sideways at each other to see if our eyes are telling us the truth—and what kind of truth that is. A world where we, the old foxes, the pre-digital and post-digital generations, still know the other side of the story.
But to wrap up, I want to say that I no longer care about my truth or anyone else’s. We will need to see how those post-digital mortals, the ones who don’t know what truth or lies used to be—truths and lies that hurt because they were true or because they were false—navigate this new reality.
The ones coming after us, those who will believe everything their eyes see, because there will be nothing else to do, will let themselves be carried away by their senses—senses that are no longer what they used to be.