Marilyn Monroe is resurrected as a TSA agent going through traveler’s bags, while the late wheelchair-bound physicist Stephen Hawking is depicted suffering all manner of indignities from dirt biking to being cast as a WWE wrestler.
Clearly this is not how the estates of these people want them portrayed, but new AI video capabilities don’t wait around for permissions and social media is awash with thousands of similar new videos daily.
This has been fueled by the wide release of OpenAI’s Sora 2 app on Oct. 1 along with other video software such as Midjourney and Google Gemini.
Swathes of living actors, actresses, illustrators and animators rushed to their lawyers to protect their likeness. Some, but very few, are embracing it.
Mark Cuban is one of them. “I saw it,” he told The Post of one Sora AI video. “It looks like me hitting the bong hard and going, ‘Oh, s—t. This s—t is good.’”
Was Cuban piqued by the depiction? Not really. “I just posted a comment that said, ‘This is funny. But I don’t smoke.’”
Jake Paul is another, and can be seen converting to Islam, pregnant, putting on make-up and modeling dresses. It should be noted both men are themselves investors in AI.
The capabilities of new text to video apps are phenomenal, able to conjure up practically any scene you can dream up in broadcast quality, from your next-door neighbor landing on the moon or your mother-in-law mining for diamonds.
However, that also means the scope for its abuse remains incredibly high. A lot of the content people produce is puerile, and has come to be labeled “slop.”
OpenAI initially released Sora — which is still currently only available to those who are invited — with a policy of people having to opt-out if they didn’t want to be used in the app.
Following an almighty uproar, in which lawyers rightly pointed out that’s not how US copyright law works, OpenAI reversed course. They have since said they will give “rightsholders more granular control over generation of characters,” which is “similar to the opt-in model for likeness”— although further details are scant.
Aaron Kogan, of Aaron Kogan Management in Los Angeles, hopes eventually there will be a détente between old school movie making and new.
“I share concerns that it will up-end the ecosystem [of Hollywood],” he told The Post. “But I hope that when we find the new equilibrium, there will be a home for AI generated content and there will also be a home for film and television made with people. I just don’t know what that balance will be.”
Aaron Kogan, of Aaron Kogan Management in Los Angeles, hopes eventually there will be a détente between old school movie making and new.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appears in various AI videos — he can been seen driving to the bucket for the Lakers and apparently losing it over getting too little guac at a Chipotle.
Those videos seem relatively cool in contrast to those of the late, famously mellow PBS artist Bob Ross. He’s been depicted getting thrown in jail and painting on the street in his underwear via the magic of AI.
His estate is not happy. Joan Kowalsky, president of Bob Ross, Inc., says his devoted fanbase have been calling to inquire what the heck is going on.
What do they tell Kowalski? “Well,” she says, “for the most part, ‘This is disgraceful. He’s such a wonderful person. Can you do anything about this?’ A lot of people think that because Bob was on public television, he is in the public domain, which is not true.”
Kowalski, who has not personally seen the videos, has been issuing notices. “We’re asking if they will take them down at our request. Or are there other measures we need to take?”
While Ross has a nice guy image, Kowalski makes clear that he was “ferocious about making sure that his name and image were being used properly. He wanted people to be happy with him. If there’s any anxiety coming from that, he would flip.”
Cuban, who has invested in an AI video company called Synthesia, takes the opposite approach.