Greetings Friends.
Phil Langer, an early visitor here, made the best self-promotion video, probably ever. It’s a New Sora (Sora 2) demo and it’s unique as it is funny. His hourly rate probably scored a nice bump.
Soooooo many copycats will double-down on LinkedIn to get their share of eyeballs. LinkedIn may finally break. You’ve been warned. Here’s Phil’s original LinkedIn post. Unfortunately LinkedIn posts don’t play nice here.
Headlines
1. The Tool of the Week
Sora Part Deux. Let’s look under the hood.
Here’s your New Sora rundown.
Remember “New Coke.” Most people new it by another name, Pepsi. The difference here is “Coke Classic” was actually great and didn’t need “more” of anything. “Sora Classic” was kinda sucking wind. The best part wasn’t the image quality. It was the “All You Can Eat Sora Buffet!”
Make as much shizzle as you want. Not as good as Midjourney, but perfect for blogs, newsletters. Anything pro-level needs “Veo” anyway.
So let’s have a look here at “New Sora.” Equal parts existential dread and observational comedy.
🚀 Features & Functions
(Or: “So This Is How the World Ends—With Perfectly Synced Lip Movement”)
1. Photorealism So Good, You’ll Wonder If You’re Real.
New Sora is here. It’s slick. It’s sharp. It’s unsettling. It can simulate physics, reflections, gravity—gravity!
We’ve reached the point where two squirrels doing synchronized aerial banana juggling is not only possible, it’s expected. And we’re just... fine with that? This is where civilization is now?
2. It Makes Sound. Yes, Sound. And It’s Synced.
Gone are the days of silent, soulless AI clips where everyone looked like they were trapped in an avant-garde mime horror. Now? Sora 2 adds dialogue, ambient sound, emotion. It’s like your AI film went to theater camp.
You ask for a moody jazz solo in the snow, and it might give you that. Or it might give you space-funk performed by invisible squirrels. You don’t know. That’s the terror. That’s the magic.
3. Cameos: Sounds Like a Much Deeper, Richer Version of a F*cking Selfie.
You can upload your face and voice. Because who doesn’t want to be involuntarily cast in a sci-fi thriller or a romantic drama directed by a hallucinating machine?
You get a notification: “Someone used your likeness.” What do you do? Say thanks? Call your lawyer? Move to the woods? Choices! Revenge AI vids here we come!
4. It Has a Social App. Because of Course It Does.
This whole iOS social nonsense is a disaster looking for a place to happen. I hope filters prevent unauthorized likeness usage. I get it - they want to flood social media with more AI slop. It’s TikTok, but for dreams written by machines on Red Bull. You can remix videos you didn’t shoot, with people who don’t exist, in scenes that never happened.
Scroll. Tap. Remix. Dance with a llama. Watch a cat sing opera. This is entertainment now. Humanity had a good run.
Filters will stop you if you get too creative. “Denied: Too spicy.” What does that even mean? You don’t know. The AI knows. The AI is watching.
5. Watermarks: A Warning Label for Reality
There’s a watermark and metadata on every video. A tiny reminder that what you’re watching is fake—but what isn’t, these days?
The system also enforces things like “rules” and “ethics.” Because letting people use AI without limits would be irresponsible. And we’d never do that, would we?
🛠️ How to Use Sora 2
(You’ll need to be a cool kid with an invite)
Step 1: Get Invited
Invite-only. Beg for it. Bribe someone. Offer emotional support to a tech bro. Whatever it takes. And it’s iOS-only—for now. Android users can just sit quietly and reflect on their choices.
Step 2: Give Consent. Or Don’t. Doesn’t Matter. You Already Did.
Want to use your face in videos? Great. Verify your identity, agree to the terms, and sign over your soul. Easy!
Step 3: Prompt Like It’s the Last Thing You’ll Ever Say
Type something poetic like:
“A red kite over misty mountains at dawn, gentle wind, eagle cries.”
Sora 2 reads that and thinks:
“Got it. Flaming squirrel chasing rolling nuts on-fire. Let’s roll.”
Step 4: Enjoy Your AI Doppelgänger
You gave permission for your face to be used. Now it’s starring in someone else’s rom-com about love in a post-apocalyptic juice bar. You’ll be notified. You’ll pretend it’s fine.
Step 5: Share Your Creation With the Void
Upload. Swipe. Remix. React. Everything’s watermarked, so your viewers know what’s real. Or rather, what’s definitely not real. Which is reassuring, in the most disturbing way possible.
🃏 Final Thoughts of Dread
Why is that tree purple? Why is it singing?
You look amazing. Like a digital ghost of yourself.
Some prompts are “too much” for the AI. What does that mean?
Your face might show up in a remix called “Goblin Disco Fever.” You won’t be ready.
Android users: wait your turn like it’s 2012 again.
So there you have it. Sora 2: It’s powerful. It’s terrifying. It’s hilarious. It’s the future—and apparently, the future wants to see what you’d look like as an astronaut jazz dancer with glowing antlers.
What’s the deal with AI, huh?
2. The State of the AI Union.
The “Happy Edition” bombed. I lost four sardonic friends. So happy is not we want. So let’s go for informed comment with a long game of entertainment. Or something like that. Let’s have a look at where we might be today.
Prelude: Before the Engines Roared
The Cathedral Nobody Sees
Every tech era has its big reveal. Its cathedral moment. Printing press ink on a monk’s hands. Telegraph wires buzzing across the prairie. The cold, indifferent hum of a data center. Those you could touch.
Now the cathedral is invisible. It’s not a machine you marvel at, it’s the infrastructure running quietly in your pocket. It’s compute; massive, industrial-scale processing power. Whoever has it can train, steer, and deploy the models. And these aren’t just “cool demos.” They’re prototypes of tomorrow’s operating system for society. Forget oil or steel. The new geopolitics is GPUs.
Ads Don’t Look Like Ads Anymore
Remember when ads were obvious? A detergent jingle, a highway billboard, a Super Bowl spot?
Now persuasion is ambient. It doesn’t show up as a thing. It is the environment. The scroll, the feed, the app. Every pause, every click, every micro-hesitation is tracked and fed back to you as a haptic nudge. One degree at a time. And it doesn’t feel like advertising. It feels like choice.
Breakthroughs at the Speed of “Wait, Already?”
Research used to move like weather. Papers every year, demos every so often. Now it’s constant; weekly, daily, hourly … The 24-hour news cycle needs sh*t content to fill holes.
Synthetic voices that sound like your mom. But not in a good way. Video generators that spit out an entire ad campaign over lunch. Agents that don’t just summarize, they make edits. Decisions. It’s thrilling. It’s terrifying. And half the time you don’t know if the door you just opened leads to treasure … or to fire.
Congress is Sitting on a Couch
The one thing that’s supposed to slow this down, regulation, is jogging along while the models sprint. White papers circulate, agencies posture, and hearings get scheduled. But here’s the truth: it’s not just that Congress doesn’t understand technology. It’s that Congress doesn’t give a sh*t care.
Tech execs with their bloated wallets show up to kiss the ring, jockey for positioning in the group photo (front and center, but not too close to the new Mrs. Bezos), and wonder how many zeros were on the check they just signed for the new ballroom.
Waiting for Godot
Remember when Congress was relevant? When a hearing actually rattled CEOs, when lawmakers seemed at least interested in the stakes? That era’s gone. Now they’re seated on a(n) metaphorical actual couch off to the side, waiting for Godot, idly scrolling their phones while ceding as much responsibility as possible. Ironically for more power.
Regulation isn’t underpowered. It’s uninterested. And while the AI plane is mid-flight, engines screaming, Congress is asking if anyone wants takeout purchased with meme coins.
The Threshold Era
This isn’t a slow burn. It’s a series of thresholds. One month AI is writing poems, the next it’s designing proteins, the next it’s negotiating with even smarter AIs. What feels magical in March is “meh” by September. We acclimate fast, maybe too fast. It’s boiling-frog territory, except the pot is on venture capital’s stove.
Already in the Air
The best metaphor is aviation. We’re building the plane while it roars down the runway, takes off, engines screaming. And then you notice. Inside the flight deck the crew is still wiring the controls and arguing about the brakes. That’s us. Already in the clouds, already loud, still unfinished.
From Tools to Environments
The thing most people miss: these aren’t just tools anymore. They’re environments. We don’t just use them; we live inside them. They set the speed, they shape the choices, they quietly redraw the borders of what’s possible.
And the line between “my idea” and “machine suggestion” is fading fast. You scroll, you ask, you watch, and the machine is nudging you all the while. Influence used to be art. Now it’s calibration.
Delight and Dread in the Same Box
That’s why we can’t separate the miracle from the nightmare. The same tech that can deliver a Morgan Freeman voiceover of Shakespeare can also trick your dad into thinking you just called. The same video generator that makes a surreal music video can also fabricate courtroom evidence. Delight and dread now ship as one.
Final Descent
So here we are: things moving faster than we can metabolize. Persuasion coded into your apps. Compute as the new oil. Ads as an environment, not an interruption. Research dazzling and destabilizing. Regulation slumped on the couch.
We’re crossing thresholds. The runway is behind us. The plane is airborne. The engines scream. And yes, we’re still working on those damn brakes mid-flight.
In My Feed
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Thanks for the read! Apologies for typos and nonsense that is, well, nonsense.
