The first Sora 2 videos are hitting the web, and I'm both impressed and queasy (www.techradar.com)

OpenAI’s Sora 2 is already producing short, TikTok‑style videos circulating online that push synthetic video quality further than many predecessors: sharper visuals, stronger narrative continuity, and tightly synchronized speech and sound. Early clips—ranging from a Joan Rivers–style standup routine to a pool‑party sketch, a nostalgic commercial parody, and a spooky I Love Lucy riff—show realistic physics (water splashes, clothing drag) and coherent multi‑shot sequences created quickly. But they also expose classic generative video flaws: grotesque facial artifacts, odd limb or prop behavior, misrendered details, and an uncanny valley that can feel unsettling or nauseating. For the AI/ML community this matters because Sora 2 signals progress in multimodal alignment (audio‑video sync, longer coherent outputs) and rapid short‑form production, narrowing the gap between edited clips and wholly synthetic footage. That raises technical and policy priorities: robustness and evaluation of temporal coherence, better failure modes detection, provenance and watermarking, copyright/impersonation safeguards, and improved classifiers to spot deepfakes. In short, Sora 2 is an impressive step for generative video research—but its realism and ease of use amplify urgent ethical, legal, and detection challenges for researchers, platforms, and regulators.