Sora 2, OpenAI’s next-generation generative video model, powers the Sora app. The ability to easily churn out hyperrealistic AI videos makes some people uneasy. 

The recent release of OpenAI’s Sora app is an invitation to turn yourself into AI video content. Instead of simply filming yourself, the app scans your face and records a snippet of your voice so it can build a digital version of you that moves and talks on screen. 

With that simple two-step process, you are well on your way to featuring your digital double in short, realistic videos — but only if you hand over your most personal information to the company.

Sora’s ability to churn out hyperrealistic videos has already made some people uneasy. But for many in Generation Z, those born from 1997 to 2012, Sora can feel like the next logical step for online meme culture. But our playful engagement with the app hides the danger in biometric data becoming the new entry fee for meme production. Sora’s popularity shows that young people have grown comfortable living within the surveillance economy, and that raises a hard question for all of us, not just Gen Z: Why don’t we seem to mind? 

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It’s no surprise that Gen Z is embracing Sora so freely. As the first digital natives, my generation grew up in the age of data sharing: creating social media accounts at whim, Googling anything that crossed our minds, casually clicking “accept” on cookie policies and uploading YouTube videos. And while parody videos dominated YouTube in the early 2010s, we’ve spent the past decade turning our own loss of privacy into the ultimate punchline.

The surveillance economy is an economic order based on collecting, analyzing and selling our data.........

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