[HN Gopher] Sora, AI Bicycles, and Meta Disruption
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Sora, AI Bicycles, and Meta Disruption
Author : feross
Score : 23 points
Date : 2025-10-06 16:17 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (stratechery.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (stratechery.com)
| jasonsb wrote:
| This might be controversial, but I genuinely love AI-generated
| "video slop". Hear me out for a second: I'm utterly exhausted by
| influencers peddling their endless "buy this crap" content.
| Honestly, the AI slop often feels more creative, less salesy and
| refreshingly free of performative perfection.
|
| But Meta knows AI slop poses a problem for their business model.
| When anyone can churn out engaging content without needing
| perfect lighting, a six-figure ad deal, or even a face or voice,
| there's little incentive for users to stay locked into the
| influencer-driven attention economy that fuels Meta's ad revenue.
| They don't just want your attention, they want it monetized. And
| right now, AI slop is too democratic to profit from.
| matwood wrote:
| My friends and I have been having a blast coming up with
| hilarious situations to put ourselves in. Will it get old,
| maybe, but new features might keep it fresh.
| pedalpete wrote:
| I'm not sure I completely understand what you're saying.
|
| Are people locked into the influencer economy because of the
| "polish" of the videos?
|
| I feel like people are more locked into consumerism, and this
| is just the cheapest channel of delivery.
|
| Won't much of the AI slop just become, or try to become the
| influencer itself?
| ebbi wrote:
| Agreed. All content eventually optimizes for clicks ->
| monetization, which is typically dictated by the platforms'
| algorithms. That's why things end up looking the same over
| time as that's what people are creating content to optimize
| for.
| jasonsb wrote:
| > Are people locked into the influencer economy because of
| the "polish" of the videos?
|
| Yes. Influencers with big production and marketing budgets
| will usually create more content that has the "wow" factor.
| With AI people can add the same "wow" factor in their videos
| with little to no budget. This should slowly erode the value
| of a platform like Instagram as AI content gets better.
| rpcope1 wrote:
| Is your AI writing HN comments for you too now?
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| It just hasn't been optimized yet because it's so new
| MattDaEskimo wrote:
| I'm not sure it's fair to separate "AI Slop" with "Buy my crap"
| marketing.
|
| People will monetize one way or another. It may be more or less
| explicit with AI slop.
|
| Additionally, I would challenge "AI slop posing a problem": AI
| Agents and automation of content keeps people engaged inside of
| a platform, inside of a niche. A democratization may lead to
| more expensive ad space.
|
| Meta can certainly assist in creating slop and maintaining
| conversational salespersons
| jasonsb wrote:
| > Meta can certainly assist in creating slop and maintaining
| conversational salespersons
|
| They absolutely can and you could've said the same about
| Stack Overflow or Quora. But in the end those platforms
| fizzled once AI began to democratize the creation of "good-
| enough" answers. The same trajectory likely awaits Instagram
| as AI-generated videos reach parity with user-made ones, the
| distinction between creator and consumer will blur. The shift
| is inevitable if the technology doesn't hit a wall.
|
| Maybe companies like OpenAI will make even more money by
| licensing the technology that keeps us entertained, but the
| influencer economy will eventually collapse. I'm not saying
| what's coming is necessarily better, I'm just saying Meta's
| platforms are in for a rough ride.
| s1mon wrote:
| I spend way too much time on short videos on Instagram and
| TikTok. I've got Sora and I've tried a bunch of times and I'm
| just baffled by its success so far.
|
| First of all I almost never use these video services with the
| sound on. I know I'm not the only one, because many services have
| captions on by default. Sora doesn't seem to have a solution for
| this yet.
|
| Second, I have almost no desire to see videos with @Sama cameos.
| I get served a bunch of them every time. Along with MLK, Lincoln,
| Kennedy etc. @Sama isn't funny to me, and raping the likenesses
| of some of those figures doesn't really work for me.
|
| Third, there's not enough creativity and range in the videos. I
| see way too many of the same videos over and over and over. The
| riffs on the 1980s/90s TV commercial with the kid opening the
| sucky Christmas present. Ok, maybe there's a small iota of humor
| once or twice, but not enough to sustain endless remixes of the
| same thing.
|
| I also hate just about all Jim Carrey films (except maybe the
| Truman Show) but many other people seem to love them. Perhaps
| Sora just isn't for me.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > I also hate just about all Jim Carrey films (except maybe the
| Truman Show) but many other people seem to love them. Perhaps
| Sora just isn't for me.
|
| What do you think about Cable Guy? It is essentially a somewhat
| social realist movie about the total nightmare of having a
| typical Jim Carrey character in your life. You might like it.
| asveikau wrote:
| Haven't seen that one since it was current. I remember people
| really disliking it, as Carrey had blown onto the scene with
| Ace Ventura and set expectations thusly, and it wasn't as
| successful a role change as Truman Show or even something
| like Liar Liar.
| delduca wrote:
| Cable guy is amazing.
| gyomu wrote:
| People love Sora in no small part because it lets them make
| videos with their favorite public figure/fictional character in
| them.
|
| OpenAI knew that, played fast and loose with IP laws because...
| they wanted that bit of popularity to impress investors or
| something... then the lawyers got nervous and now they're dialing
| it back down.
|
| It's a trick they can pull once but that's it.
|
| I suspect the more limited it inevitably becomes due to lawyers
| being lawyers, the more its popularity will wane.
|
| Ironically enough, that's why I think open-source models will
| still come out ahead in the long term. People really want to make
| videos with Pikachu in them.
| romanhn wrote:
| Was excited to see Ben Thompson get on the pelicans-on-bicycles
| bandwagon, but alas, not quite the AI bicycles he was talking
| about.
| Thrymr wrote:
| "AI Bicycles" is a little ironic for the bike parts manufacturer
| Shimano, whose Sora model of derailleur has been around for
| years.
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