OpenAI’s Sora 2 is the rare artificial intelligence video tool that feels instantly entertaining because it stars you and your friends. The app is currently invite-only, but early use reveals a simple hook: upload a short sample video of your face, then generate clips featuring your likeness from text prompts. The author deliberately sets aside worries about copyright, legality, and hyper-realistic fakes to focus on the fun, describing Sora 2 as the most enjoyable thing online in weeks.
The differentiator is participation. Sora 2 makes it easy to create videos with your own face and optionally allow others to use your likeness, with controls to limit usage to friends or open it to anyone. That unlocks endless, goofy scenarios that feel fresh precisely because they involve familiar people: you and a colleague fleeing a cat-stuffed getaway car after a pet-store heist, interviewing Sam Altman for a podcast, or getting jump-scared at the office by a sasquatch. The author argues this personal element is the secret ingredient missing from so much artificial intelligence slop. As writer Max Read once observed, artificial intelligence excels at powering dumb jokes, and Sora 2 channels that energy best when the jokes involve your own circle.
Feed dynamics matter, too. At first, because so few people allowed their likenesses to be used, Sora 2’s suggested faces skewed to Sam Altman and a handful of OpenAI employees, a novelty that wore thin. Once a few colleagues and tech journalists joined, the feed clicked and became genuinely fun. That stands in contrast to Meta’s newly launched Vibes feed, which the author found to be a dud: a scroll of impersonal artificial intelligence clips, like a dog driving a car, that rarely land. As the Sources newsletter’s Alex Heath put it, people may not mind artificial intelligence slop if they can be part of it with friends, something Meta apparently missed and OpenAI grasped.
Whether the appeal lasts remains an open question. The author is skeptical Sora 2 will stay hilarious beyond the initial burst of novelty and notes the app could settle into a more troubling tool once the shine fades. For now, though, the personal, social twist makes it feel lively in a way many artificial intelligence video feeds do not. Disclosure: Business Insider’s parent company, Axel Springer, has a business partnership with OpenAI.
