OpenAI has decided to temporarily stop generating videos depicting Martin Luther King Jr. on Sora following the discontent expressed by his family, a decision that seeks to reinforce limits on image use of historical figures within its audiovisual creation platform using AI.
The company communicated with Dr. King's estate that, although there is a legitimate interest in freedom of expression, Families and representatives must retain the final say on how their likeness is used in AI-generated content.
What exactly has OpenAI decided?
The company has activated a specific pause to prevent Sora from generating clips where the civil rights leader appears, while establishing a formal procedure for heirs or authorized representatives request exclusion of the resemblance of other personalities in the so-called "cameos" of the application, in line with previous cases such as the unexpected suspension of Instagram accounts.
According to OpenAI, this is a temporary measure while tighten safeguards for historical figures and the tool controls are adjusted, with the aim of avoiding degrading or unauthorized uses of the image, in a context similar to that of Instagram under the microscope.
Why the measure was taken
The decision comes after a wave of tasteless recreations circulating on Sora, some containing racist content and others placing Dr. King in cartoonish or absurd scenes; these widely shared examples triggered criticism and complaints for violating the dignity of the activist.
Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., publicly called for an end to AI-generated videos of her father, calling the reenactments painful and disrespectful; her complaint was added to that of Zelda Williams, daughter of actor Robin Williams, opposed synthetic clips of deceased relatives.
Sora's Function and Limits
Sora is OpenAI's social video platform that allows you to generate hyperrealistic clips from text, including faces of real people or historical figures, and its release sparked an intense debate about the ease with which manipulated or misleading content can be produced.
Although there are barriers that block some requests with celebrities, experience has shown that Filters are not infallible and results that undermine the image or reputation of well-known individuals may slip through the net.
Aside from King's case, app users have spread questionable recreations of other figures such as Bob Ross, Whitney Houston and John F. Kennedy, as well as clips inspired by copyrighted works (for example, South Park, Pokémon or SpongeBob), which has worried studios and headlines in the entertainment industry, and concerns the proliferation of hoaxes and scams on Facebook.
Copyright and image control
In parallel, OpenAI has announced that it will offer rights holders a more granular control about the use of its characters or brands within Sora and that it is working on compensation and revenue-sharing mechanisms for authorized content, with the possibility of requesting specific exclusions, a line that recalls the Meta sues for Facebook closures.
The position of giving decision-making capacity to families and estates reopens the debate between creative freedom and respect for memory, a tension that OpenAI tries to manage by strengthening barriers for historical figures without closing the door to legitimate uses of technology.
Reactions within the company
Sora's presentation was not without internal doubts: some researchers expressed their discomfort and Sam Altman himself admitted that there were trepidation on launch day, aware of the potential social impact of the product.
In response, product managers like Nick Turley defended the philosophy of open learning: throw, observe, correct and iterate again, assuming that public deployment accelerates risk identification and systems improvement.
The pause on Martin Luther King Jr. has become a warning sign for the Sora ecosystem: a tool designed for creativity that now delimits where the ethical and legal boundaries are, prioritizing respect for legacy and rights against recreations that may be offensive or problematic.