OpenAI’s Sora used to make deepfake AI videos of dead celebrities, outraging their families

Family members of dead celebrities including Robin Willians and George Carlin are calling foul over AI-generated videos of their loved ones appearing on OpenAI’s new app, Sora. 

OpenAI’s new video generation app is just a few weeks old, but it rapidly rocketed to the top of the U.S. Apple App Store within days of its release. And perhaps as rapidly, experts and creators raised copyright concerns around Sora, as the app appeared to let users create content of well-known cartoon characters and deepfakes of public figures. 

OpenAI has since curbed those kinds of videos, but The Washington Post and other outlets have reported that family members of dead celebrities don’t think enough is being done to protect their loved ones’ likeness. When OpenAI launched Sora, it said videos of “historical figures” would not be limited in the same way as deep fakes of living public figures.

What the families are saying about Sora

On Tuesday, Robin Willians’ daughter, Zelda, took to Instagram to share a plea with followers. “Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad,” she wrote. “If you’ve got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It’s dumb, it’s a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it’s NOT what he’d want.”

The late comedian George Carlin’s daughter, Kelly, expressed a similar view. She took to BlueSky to share her experience, writing that videos using her father’s likeness are both “overwhelming, and depressing.”

Assassinated civil rights leader Malcolm X’s daughter told the Post that “it is deeply disrespectful and hurtful to see my father’s image used in such a cavalier and insensitive manner when he dedicated his life to truth.”

OpenAI told the Post and other outlets that it would work with the families of “recently deceased” public figures to have their loved ones’ likeness removed from the app. “For public figures who are recently deceased, authorized representatives or owners of their estate can request that their likeness not be used in Sora cameos,” the company said.

It remains unclear whether OpenAI will limit the use of more historical dead celebrities and public figures: Some videos on the app feature older deceased figures, including Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Martin Luther King. Jr. 

Broader privacy, copyright concerns remain 

Experts are wary about the implications of Sora for creators and for privacy. “It’s as if deepfakes got a publicist and a distribution deal,” Daisy Soderberg-Rivkin, a former trust and safety manager at TikTok, told NPR. “It’s an amplification of something that has been scary for a while, but now it has a whole new platform.”

The head of the Motion Picture Association said in a statement that OpenAI must take responsibility to prevent copyright infringement, and not put the burden on rights holders. “Well-established copyright law safeguards the rights of creators and applies here.”

Others have flagged the app’s potential to be used maliciously, including by users who might create videos to mock or bully others. “It has no fidelity to history, it has no relationship to the truth,” a misinformation expert told The Guardian. “When cruel people get their hands on tools like this, they will use them for hate, harassment and incitement.”

OpenAI did not immediately respond to Fast Company’s request for comment.

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