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OpenAI unleashed Sora 2 last month, the final boss of slop machines (at least for now). The social app draws entirely from artificial intelligence: Instead of sharing photos and videos of themselves, users can opt in for cameos and create fake clips that depict themselves or their friends in any scenario imaginable. It’s mostly being used to make viral meme content and the type of short-form videos you’d scroll past on TikTok, albeit with deepfakes. Sora doesn’t allow you to make videos of other living people (dead celebrities and SpongeBob SquarePants characters are fair game) unless given express permission. As one user put it: Digital Taxidermy is the craziest yet most accurate description of the AI slop videos of people who’ve passed away. OpenAI in 2021: ‘we want to cure brain cancer,’ another X post read, responding to the announcement. OpenAI in 2025: ‘were becoming brain cancer.’ Upon the apps release, one of the first breakout stars was none other than CEO Sam Altman. You either die a hero or build Sora 2 and become meme material, an X post read with an AI generated Altman posing as a K-pop star, wearing a crop top and dark nail varnish. Another X user used Sora to make an AI video of Altman wearing baggy clothes and outfit and thick gold chains, rapping about his company’s success. Sam Altman dressed like a 2000s rapper is rapping about how Sora is bankrupting all other AI video companies, ending every line with what happened to that boy, brrr, they posted. Responding to the influx of memes, Altman wrote on X, it is way less strange to watch a feed full of memes of yourself than I thought it would be. Not sure what to make of this. In another popular Sora 2 deepfake, Altman is busted stealing GPUs from Target. Luiza Jarovsky wrote: It is AS IF they are encouraging people to create fake videos of people committing crimes, being humiliated, or in all sorts of embarrassing situations. She added. The AI-powered ‘deepfakezation’ of the internet is here and it will not be beautiful. Just days after launch, journalist Taylor Lorenz also announced that a psychotic stalker was already using Sora 2 to make deepfake videos of her. It is scary to think what AI is doing to feed my stalkers delusions, Lorenz wrote. Others however, are embracing the slop life. Bob Ross vibe coding was the AI slop I never knew I needed in my life, one post read. Another big meme on Sora is making it appear as if Jake Paul is coming out the closet or give makeup tutorials. Paul himself appears to be in on the joke. Ive had it with the AI stuff, he said in a Wednesday video. Its affecting my relationships, businesses. Its really affecting things, and people really need to get a life, he added, all the while dabbing foundation on his face.
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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. A recent Zillow analysis suggests it would take a drop of more than one percentage pointto 4.43%for the median-income U.S. homebuyer to comfortably afford the median-priced U.S. home. And that assumes a 20% down payment, which many first-time buyers are unable to make. Even more striking, in several high-cost coastal metros, not even a 0% mortgage rate would make the median-priced local home affordable for a household earning the local median income. This includes New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, San Diego, and San Jose, where taxes, insurance, and maintenance on a median-priced home alone can often consume more than 10% of a median households income. On the flip side, Zillow finds that mortgage rates are already low enough for median-income buyers in many Midwestern markets to afford the median-priced home in those areas. Keep in mind, this is back-of-the-envelope math. The mortgage rate scenarios above assume all else is equaland that lower rates dont impact home prices. Are we likely to see an average 30-year fixed mortgage rate of 4.43% anytime soon? Zillow economists say that scenario is unrealisticat least in the short term. Holding incomes, [U.S.] home prices and all other housing-related costs equal, mortgage rates would need to drop to 4.43% in order for a typical home to be affordable to a buyer making the median income, assuming they put 20% down. That kind of a rate decline is currently unrealistic, wrote Zillow economic analyst Anushna Prakash. Prakash added that: If buyers are waiting for big drops in mortgage rates or [U.S. home] prices to help affordability, theyre in for a rude awakening. Just like falling rates, that kind of correction in house prices wont happen without a serious slowdown in economic growth and income growth, and a rise in the unemployment rate.
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Facebook has taken down a large group page that was being used to dox and target [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents in Chicago, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X Tuesday. Facebook parent Meta confirmed the move in a brief statement shared with Fast Company Tuesday. This Group was removed for violating our policies against coordinated harm, a Meta spokesperson said. Those policies include prohibitions against outing undercover law enforcement and supporting vandalism, among other restrictions. Meta did not immediately respond to an inquiry about which of those rules were allegedly violated. Neither Meta nor Bondis statement identified the Facebook group in question. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that it was a group called ICE Sighting Chicagoland” with roughly 76,000 members. Numerous Chicago Facebook groups and pages have featured reports and discussions of ICE activity in recent weeks, as state and local officials and many residents have condemned and protested the agencys aggressive operations in the area. Another Chicago Facebook page, condemned in conservative media in recent days for allegedly encouraging resistance against ICE, appeared to still be live Tuesday afternoon. Conservatives have previously criticized Facebook parent Meta and other social media companies for bowing to what they saw as censorship demands from the left, including pressure from the Biden administration to take down certain pandemic-related posts. I believe the government pressure was wrong and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) last year. Jordan praised Zuckerberg earlier this year as the company ended a fact-checking program and other content restrictions conservatives saw as limiting free speech. Meta also agreed to pay $25 million to settle claims related to Facebook and Instagram suspending President Trumps accounts after the January 6, 2020, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which the president called a First Amendment violation, citing alleged government pressure on the company. Other online platforms including Apples App Store and the Google Play Store have also reportedly recently taken down tools used for tracking ICE operations, with Apple telling Fox Business at least one ICE-tracking app was removed after a law enforcement request. Courts have historically held that its legal under the First Amendment to film and otherwise document law enforcement activity. The wave of violence against ICE has been driven by online apps and social media campaigns designed to put ICE officers at risk just for doing their jobs, Bondi said in her post. The Department of Justice will continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement.
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