OpenAI’s Social Media Venture Has Been Met with ‘Interesting’ Reactions

When a frontier AI lab like OpenAI reveals it’s entering the social media arena, the move is bound to provoke mixed reactions ranging from hope to alarm. That is exactly what has unfolded in the recent rollout of Sora, a TikTok-style, AI-video social feed built around generative videos and algorithmic recommendations. The reactions have been quite ‘interesting’, marked by a swirl of technical admiration, ethical unease, internal dissent, and public scepticism.

The Pitch: A “ChatGPT for Video”?

From OpenAI’s perspective, Sora is a natural extension of its mission to bring the power of AI to media and content creation in new forms. The company frames it as a bold experiment, one that could unlock new creative modes and help fund its broader research via consumer engagement. According to Wired, the Sora app is built around vertical scroll video, remixing, and a mechanism where users can upload a biometric “cameo” (voice + face) to allow others (with permission, of course) to generate videos featuring their likeness.

In internal circles, there is also optimism. Some documents suggest employees were using the tool heavily even before the public launch, and leaders see it as part of OpenAI’s strategy to acquire real-time training data and new user interaction modalities.

An Internal Discord At OpenAI

Yet OpenAI’s own researchers are in many cases uneasy. TechCrunch reported about several current and former staff taking to public platforms to express their doubts. John Hallman, a pre-training researcher, noted that “AI-based feeds are scary,” even as he gave moderate credit to the design team’s efforts. Boaz Barak added: “Sora 2 is technically amazing, but it’s premature to congratulate ourselves on avoiding the pitfalls of other social media apps and deepfakes.”

The tension between OpenAI’s roots as a mission-driven research entity versus its growing identity as a consumer tech powerhouse is also a cause for concern. Some former researchers, such as Rohan Pandey, have even publicly endorsed alternative paths, saying, “If you don’t want to build the infinite AI TikTok slop machine … come join us at Periodic Labs.”

When the engineers who build core models question whether the consumer play aligns with “benefiting humanity,” that tells you everything you need to know.

Meanwhile, the Public is both Amused and Horrified

The public response has ranged sharply, from delight in the technological novelty to outright horror at the implications.

On the newly launched Sora app, deepfake videos of Sam Altman have already flooded the feed. In one, he appears to steal Nvidia GPUs from a Target store; in another, he is embedded in a Pikachu field pleading with Nintendo not to sue. The grotesque absurdity of such content has captured attention and concern across tech circles and meme feeds alike.

Critics have highlighted some concerning red flags:

• Misleading realism & misinformation: The more convincing the AI becomes, the easier it is to spread content that masquerades as real, obscuring the line between fact and fabrication.
  
• Likeness and consent: Although Sora requires users to grant permission for their “cameo” use, the default exposure of Altman’s cameo (which he made fully public) has shown how these systems can be gamed… even without consent.
  
• Copyright and content sourcing: Sora reportedly flips the usual model such that rights holders must opt out of having their content used. Many see this as a legal and moral stretch.
  
• Addictive “slop” content: Some observers warn that Sora may amplify low-effort, attention-hacking content (dubbed “AI slop”) that crowds out more meaningful creation.

On X, users voiced a mix of uneasy fascination, satire, and resistance. One tech commentator quipped: “OpenAI made a TikTok for deepfakes, and it’s getting hard to tell what’s real.” Others called it dystopian or existentially reckless. Meanwhile, in broader media, The Verge, Wired, and The Washington Post have flagged the speed at which deepfakes are proliferating on Sora and questioned who will bear the costs of misuse.

Toward a Prudent, Responsible Path

Despite all these criticisms, perhaps this is exactly what was needed. In an earlier op-ed, Impact Newswire opined that maybe we do, in fact, need a dedicated social media platform for AI-generated content; a separate ecosystem where the expectations are clear and users know upfront what they are consuming. By siloing AI-generated media, we could avoid contaminating traditional platforms where truth and authenticity are more paramount.

By launching Sora, OpenAI is, perhaps inadvertently, taking a step toward that vision. Unlike the chaos of AI filters bleeding into TikTok or Instagram, Sora defines itself explicitly as an AI content site. Anyone logging in should already have at the back of their minds that what they will see is synthetic, machine-created media. That clarity of context matters.

It doesn’t erase the risks, but it does set a healthier expectation. Instead of pretending AI videos and deepfakes are just another form of “user-generated” content, Sora openly brands itself as the place for AI creativity to play out. In that sense, it might be a constructive outlet rather than a corrosive intrusion.

OpenAI’s social media gamble is audacious, and it may well push the frontier of generative media. But it also opens Pandora’s box. The reactions to da have been “interesting” precisely because they reflect the fundamental tension between ambition and responsibility.

Still, if we accept that AI-generated content is not going away, then perhaps a defined arena like Sora is better than a messy infiltration of every platform we use. The real test will be whether OpenAI can govern it responsibly, keeping safety, transparency, and trust at the forefront.

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