Earlier this month, OpenAI released Sora 2. While it’s still invite-only, the video generator app has already been used for scams, harassment, and racism. Less than a month in, and it’s making the already hostile and chaotic media ecosystem more hostile and chaotic.
While the more pretentious among us are groping for their Neil Postman or name-dropping “The Entertainment” from David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, there’s a much simpler way to describe this latest release from Sam Altman’s $500 billion bubble machine: shit show.
For many people, Sora 2 represents a bot too far. It may also be the beginning of the end of the AI era. While no one is at imminent risk of throwing their phone into the ocean, reality-warping apps like Sora 2 might send people back to reality for a little while.
May I suggest analog as a cure for what ails you?
For the next month, Gazetteer SF will be running a series we’re calling Analog City. These pieces are designed to celebrate the non-digital world, especially in San Francisco. While many people and businesses in our town have thrown themselves headlong into the AI abyss, there are others who continue to live, work, create, and thrive in the real world. We wanna talk about them.
We’re running Analog City not in the spirit of Luddism (though there is some of that, to be sure) but as a way to embrace the surprising, non-algorithmic pleasures of life in this city. There is so much here to see, do, taste, touch, and try: Consider these pieces a reminder of the many good things that can only be found IRL.
Analog City will appear on our pages for the next few weeks leading up to our November 19th Chat Room at the Swedish American Hall dedicated to all things analog. We hope that these stories inspire you to spend more time outside in our beautiful city and that you can join us in-person at Chat Room.
If you have a suggestion for a story, email me at mh@gazetteer.co. If you wanna be analog about it, write to me at Matt Haber, Gazetteer SF, 575 Market Street, 5th Floor, SF, CA 94105. I promise I’ll write you back. My penmanship is awful, but I’ll do it by hand.
