Sora's Information Bomb: How OpenAI's Sora Propels Us Back to the Middle Ages, and Why That's Great
On OpenAI's text-to-video model
Life before Mass-Media
There was a time where we didn’t know what was going on outside our own communities. There was a time where we couldn’t necessarily trust the source. This was before the age of mass-media. In the age of mass-media, which roughly lasted from the beginning of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st one, we got (at least) the appearance that we know what is going on somewhere. Of course, what Baudrillard and other talented French Philosophers like Virilio will tell you is that this appearance was never what one could consider a “representation of reality” but more so a warping of it, a simulation. However twisted and warped this representation, it is undeniable that representations where transmitted from somewhere to somewhere else and below the warping and simulating there was some truth everyone could agree on (kinda, Baudrillard wouldn’t let me get away with fully committing to this sentence).
Media-Balkanization
Mass-media was already in the process of decay before the age of AI arrived as ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022. The boomers and those older than them are the last generations that hold on to the type of media that can be called “mass-media”. Everyone else watches, listens to and reads a massive amount of content from the greatest variety of sources. When is the last time you heard someone pointing to an outlet like CNN, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or Fox News for some news that they received? It’s most likely that they point to a social-media platform like X, or to a pundit that has a youtube-channel and/or podcast. So as we can see, with the balkanization of media-sources in the early 21st century pre-age of AI (I will call this time from now on “pre-a.o.AI”) the “arbiters of truth” that developed and got their reputation during the 20th century completely destabilised and now any source was as good as the other. However different the situation became, what will happen post-a.o.AI will be more than the cosmetic change of exchanging a small amount of media pundits for a huge amount of them.
How Sora changes the Game
Text-to-video models like Sora will destroy the ability to trust in anything any screen shows us and with the development of smart glasses and eye-implants we won’t even be sure what we’ll see with our own eyes. Until very recently, even with special effects and all other data manipulations, there was a rule of thumb, that said: when multiple pundits share a video and shine light on the matter from different angles there must be some truth displayed there. Does this video include multiple witnesses? Even better. With fully AI generated realistic videos, how could we even arrive at this smallest amount of coherence? The outcome will be that nothing, not even what was up to this point the most damning evidence, video-evidence, will suffice to make anyone believe your story.
The Return of Local-Reporters
Media will be seen like in the middle-ages again, where you for the most part are unable to produce any “definite” proof (again, I’m not saying that there was this golden age where everything could be proven, but people felt like that as long as mass-media existed, at least). In the middle-ages, when a courier arrived at a castle, or a villager from another village told some stories, their news were believed on the basis of reputation. The irony of course is that in the age of mass-media the influence of huge media outlets like MSNBC or the National Review where mostly based on reputation as well, but these outlets woo-ed the public by producing photos, videos and films that made their reporting seem real. In contrast to the new reputation-based medieval system mass-media aimed at a global reputation, based upon the production of the most “realistic” photos, videos etc.. To attain global reputation as an outlet will be no longer possible in the future. In an age where my toddler can create the equivalence of their entire program while sitting on the toilet with the press of a button, how could they ever establish any global reputation based on their “factuality”? They can’t. Now you might ask:”If the mass-media can’t get a global reputation anymore, how did travellers and couriers establish local reputation in the middle ages?” Well, that’s easy to answer: They established their local reputation by providing useful and accurate information to specific groups. The courier of a prince for example, or the traveler to a far away village he happens to pass through every couple of months. Nobody in the middle ages had video cameras or any similar technology, so people had to take others at their word. Post-a.o.AI (post-age of AI) it will be like that again. If you show someone a video people will say:”How can we be sure that you didn’t generate this video?” Your high-school friend will defend you:”I’ve known him for years, he has always been an honest guy and on top of that, his predictions helped us fend off the bands of gangs ravaging this land” See how nobody would talk about facts, sources & the content of what was spoken? The assessment would be about how the bringer of the news would intersect with the community and how his track-record had been so far. How will this improve our situation? Wouldn’t it worsen it?
Hyper-compassion: an Illusion
I’d say this will improve our situation, especially in an age where people are anxious because of conflicts, which are thousands of miles away from them. Finally, we get to worry about our communities again instead of the whole world. Does this make me cold hearted? No, as someone that puts Love above everything else, I wouldn’t support something that makes one care less about the lot of others. What mass-media reports is not making us hyper-compassionate (Baudrillard’s ghost chiming in:”Hyper-compassionate sounds negative enough, right, as to be accurate, no?”) mass-media is making us compassionate in the sense that hyper-reality makes things real. It bombards us with things that happen somewhere, whilst leaving out all the relevant context, so that we end up with this babble of information that may affect us emotionally, but out of which, we can make nothing. Even worse, powerful people might use that babble to steer us into support of war and other atrocious crimes. Generations of Westerners fed by this “babble” sought out help those others around the world on voluntary or paid temporary trips to their countries and what was the outcome? Seldom anything good - as long as the Westerners weren’t willing to permanently move to these foreign places, they couldn’t have gathered the necessary context to help the other countries after all. I guess this will all go back to the old adage that one should set his own house in order first, before fixing those of others.
You will change the World, again!
Once we stop being bombarded by babbling distractions, we will fix the world that surrounds us again and stop harming those that would be better of without what we think of as “help”. After all, we can only fix what we have the context of and each of us has the most context about what surrounds them. This will create a ripple effect that ripples through the entire world until all of us improve.
Local Action: the Wave of the Future
So instead of protesting about some war in which you have no relatives or stock in, go to the elderly home in your neighbourhood and volunteer or help your local homeless shelter. Maybe you can teach some local kids about writing essays or programming? Whatever you find, make a change and make a change here. That’s a good start! Maybe later on, once you’re mature enough, you can do it somewhere else.
So absolutely true, my dear. We forget, who suffers next to us by expanding our fear all over the world. Apparently there’s no good outcome by such a style of life, not for the others, not for ourselves.