On Tuesday, OpenAI declared that it will be discontinuing Sora, a TikTok-like social application that debuted six months prior. No explanations were offered for the closure, nor was there any information provided on when it will be formally terminated.

Upon its launch as an invite-only social platform, Sora appeared to generate considerable demand for invitations. However, similar to Meta’s Horizon Worlds — a troubled virtual reality social platform that was once pivotal to the company’s notorious metaverse — Sora failed to maintain lasting appeal. The Sora 2 video and audio generation model is impressively advanced, yet interest in a solely AI-driven social feed was fleeting.

Sora was designed to operate as an AI-centric version of TikTok, replicating the familiar vertical video interface. Its key feature, “cameos,” enabled users to scan their faces and produce highly realistic deepfakes of themselves. These “cameos” could be public, allowing anyone to craft videos featuring them. (Cameo took legal action against OpenAI over the feature’s name and won, compelling the company to rename it to “characters.”)

In an outcome that surprised absolutely no one, this overhyped deepfake app turned out to be quite bizarre.

At its inception, Sora resembled an underregulated maze of unsettling Sam Altman videos. I was forever altered after viewing a lifelike clone of the OpenAI CEO meandering through a slaughterhouse of fattened pigs and inquiring, “Are my piggies enjoying their slop?”

Sora was not intended to permit users to create videos of public individuals who had not explicitly opted in, yet bypassing OpenAI’s regulations proved to be remarkably simple. Soon enough, deepfakes of actual figures like civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and actor Robin Williams surfaced, prompting both of their daughters to take to Instagram, urging users to halt the creation of videos featuring their late fathers.

After producing numerous videos in which Sam Altman pilfered Nvidia chips from a Target, users changed tactics. Instead, they purposely generated content with copyrighted characters, courting legal issues for the individual they loved to deepfake — we witnessed Mario using cannabis, Naruto purchasing Krabby Patties, and Pikachu engaging in ASMR.

This didn’t go as planned. Instead of suing, Disney, known for its litigious nature, invested $1 billion in OpenAI along with a licensing agreement that would have allowed Sora to produce videos with characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars.

This appeared to be a pivotal moment for the AI sector. Yet, with Sora’s shutdown, the arrangement is no more — although notably, it seems that no actual financial exchange occurred before its dissolution. (Disney offered some courteous comments regarding the situation on Tuesday, stating to the Hollywood Reporter that it will “continue to engage with AI platforms” moving forward.)

The initial excitement surrounding Sora was palpable. According to data from the mobile analytics firm Appfigures, the app reached approximately 3,332,200 downloads in November across the iOS App Store and Google Play. Had the app maintained its growth, OpenAI might have continued its operation, but that was not the case. By February, downloads plummeted to 1,128,700. This figure may seem substantial, but it pales in comparison to the 900 million weekly active users of ChatGPT.

During its existence, Appfigures estimates that Sora generated roughly $2.1 million from in-app purchases, which allowed users to acquire additional video generation credits. It’s difficult to believe that the computing demands of the Sora app had a significant impact on a company that is already incurring major losses, yet the app may have been too much of a risk to retain if it wasn’t experiencing growth.

When OpenAI launched the Sora app, I braced myself for a reality where we could easily create deepfakes of one another. Although I seldom create TikToks, I felt compelled to post a public service announcement that this alarming technology was rapidly approaching. It ultimately amassed over 300,000 views, which is unusual for my typically inactive TikTok account, but this announcement elicited a genuine reaction from people. I never anticipated that it would only endure for six months.

However, the disappearance of Sora doesn’t signify the end of the threat. The Sora 2 model remains accessible — it’s just secured behind the ChatGPT paywall. Moreover, OpenAI is far from the only entity making this technology widely available. It’s just a matter of time before another social AI video application enters the market, inundating us with another wave of clips featuring Snow White storming the Capitol.