What happened

A video ad showing palm trees, secret rooms, spy cams, and an imitation Donald Trump "Orange Man" figure saying "don't release the files" was created using Sora 2.

Created by AI filmmaking firm founder Mathieu Samson, the video appears to show a 1990's children's toy commercial set on notorious paedophile and sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein's private island, and alludes to the sex trafficking and abuse scandals linking Epstein with US president Donald Trump.

The video was supposedly intended to satirise the ease with which controversial content can be generated using Sora 2. But the ad also triggered a backlash about its perceived opportunistic attempt to make publicity for Samson and his company, and for the trivialisation of child exploitation. 

Why it happened

OpenAI says Sora 2 has filters to block unsafe, sexual, terrorist, self-harm, and other potentially damaging depictions of public figures, but the Epstein ad clearly violated these with controversial satire. 

The fake ad was created primarily to highlights these inadequacies.