Popular streamer IShowSpeed is absolutely fuming over the rise of AI-powered Sora 2 deepfakes that are making him do and say things he never would.
During a recent livestream, the hugely popular 20-year-old internet personality, boasting 44.9 million YouTube subscribers, found himself watching increasingly bizarre Sora 2 videos. These deepfakes showed him kissing fans, racing cheetahs (a real-life dream of his!), and even visiting Nepal, a country he hasn’t been to. But what really set him off were numerous videos falsely depicting him coming out as gay.
A video from Speedy HQ on Twitter showed a compilation of these deepfakes, highlighting the absurdity and the streamer’s distress.
An understandably angry IShowSpeed, whose real name is Darren Jason Watkins Jr., declared he was “turning this s**t off!” He then realized the daunting task of manually deleting each video where his likeness was misused. “This s**t is getting turned off,” he said. “No more. Why does this look too real? Bro, no, that’s like, my face.” His exasperation was palpable as he repeatedly questioned, “Why do I keep coming out?!”
IShowSpeed pleaded with his viewers not to trust Sora 2 videos showing the streaming star. One deepfake, which seemed to be the final straw before he ended his stream, showed him with a newborn baby and an unknown woman, with the baby described as trans.
OpenAI’s Sora 2 app lets users create videos using the likeness of celebrities who are alive if they opt in, something IShowSpeed evidently did. During the livestream, he hit out at his chat for suggesting he do so. “That was not the right move to do,” he said. “Whoever told me to make it public, chat, you’re not here for my own safety, bro. I’m f***ed, chat.”
The outrage from IShowSpeed isn’t an isolated incident. OpenAI recently blocked Sora 2 from creating videos of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. after his estate complained about “disrespectful” content. While OpenAI promised to strengthen “guardrails for historical figures,” the app still allows videos of other high-profile individuals like President John F. Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth II, and Professor Stephen Hawking.
Sora 2 has proven controversial since its launch earlier in October.
Earlier this month, Zelda Williams, daughter of the late Robin Williams and the director of 2024 horror comedy Lisa Frankenstein, issued a heartfelt plea for fans to stop sending her AI-generated videos of her father. She stated firmly, “Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad… Stop believing I wanna see it or that I’ll understand, I don’t and I won’t. If you’re just trying to troll me, I’ve seen way worse, I’ll restrict and move on. But please, if you’ve got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It’s dumb, it’s a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it’s not what he’d want.”
The controversy surrounding Sora 2 extends beyond celebrities. The Japanese government has formally requested OpenAI to stop copyright infringement after Sora 2 videos showcased popular characters from anime and video games, including One Piece, Demon Slayer, Pokémon, and Mario.
Launched on October 1, Sora 2 can generate 20-second, 1080p videos with sound, quickly leading to a social media deluge of these AI creations. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called Sora 2 videos using copyrighted characters “interactive fan fiction.”
OpenAI had reportedly given studios and agencies an opt-out option before launch. However, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman later acknowledged the need for change, promising “more granular control over generation of characters” for rightsholders, including the ability to completely prohibit character use. He controversially referred to Sora 2 videos using copyrighted characters as “interactive fan fiction.”
Nintendo has also threatened “necessary actions against infringement of our intellectual property rights.” Meanwhile, Disney and Universal have already sued AI image creator Midjourney for allegedly misusing and distributing AI-generated characters. Disney also issued a cease and desist to Character.AI for unauthorized use of its copyrighted characters.
Mark Lemley, a Stanford Law School professor, warned that “a lot of the videos that people are going to generate of these cartoon characters are going to infringe copyright,” suggesting OpenAI is vulnerable to many lawsuits.
The Pokémon Company also formally reacted to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security using Pokémon TV hero Ash Ketchum and the series’ theme tune in a video depicting arrests. A spokesperson confirmed, “Our company was not involved in the creation or distribution of this content, and permission was not granted for the use of our intellectual property.”