Today on AI For Humans:
Disney + OpenAI: New Paradigm
OpenAI’s GPT-5.2’s Mixed Reactions
Plus, Getting Werid With Suno v5
Welcome back to the AI For Humans newsletter!
This week,, a new chapter of the AI slop conversation has begun, thanks to a massive new deal between a Hollywood giant and OpenAI…
Yes, Disney Characters Are Coming To Sora
The end is near! The Mouse House has cozied up to the Evil Empire! Creativity is now dead! We are so cooked! IT’S OVER!
These are just a few of the reactions I’ve consumed over the past few days in response to the not-all-that-surprising-but-still-very-huge deal between OpenAI and Disney to bring Disney characters to the AI video generator Sora.
Before we dive into how I personally don’t think this is the ‘end-of-days’ that many have made it out to be, let’s lay out exactly what this deal is.
This is a strategic partnership between OpenAI & Disney that’s been in the works for a long time.
The Wall Street Journal has a very good breakdown of exactly how the deal came together but essentially:
Disney is investing $1 billion into OpenAI to acquire an equity stake in the company (as well as the ability to invest more later)
OpenAI enters into a three-year licensing agreement to be able to use 200 Disney characters within Sora
None of the 200 characters Disney is making available will have the voices or likeness of IRL actors (it’s mostly animated characters)
Videos created by Sora users might also get featured on Disney+
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Obviously, this is a huge deal, not just for OpenAI but for AI video at large and its relationship with Hollywood.
A major studio (maybe THE major studio) not only licensing its iconic characters for AI use but taking a piece of the company is an implicit admission that some version of this might be the future.
Why This Won’t Be The End of Hollywood But Will Change It (Again)
Overall, the creative community within Hollywood has decried this deal as something that might grease the slippery slope towards AI generating all content rather than humans creating it.
And, in doing so, displace the people who’ve dedicated their lives to making the movies and TV we all watch.
With the looming consolidation of Netflix or Paramount with Warner Brothers, the rise of YouTube viewership and the cutting of budgets, Hollywood creatives have going through it for the past few years.
Actually, it’s YouTube that points to an interesting parallel here when it comes to opening up the door to a new paradigm via technology.
When YouTube first appeared in the mid-2000s, Hollywood was pretty quick to dismiss the idea that any of this content could compete with the sort of big-budget shows and movies it was releasing.
Cut to 2025 and many people would argue that certain YouTube stars (Mr. Beast, etc) are bigger in scope than nearly any traditional celebrity.
Huge change has come. However, Hollywood as a whole has adapted to this. Mostly.
Many of the new media stars are repped by Hollywood agents or managers. Shows featuring them have been green-lit by mainstream steamers. Lots of money is being made by this new talent, even if all of it isn’t showing up in the traditional pipelines.
However, Youtube has displaced quite a few people in Hollywood when it comes to large productions like documentary programming and (ahem) talk shows.
Many once gainfully employed making TV or movies during the peak cable and streaming TV eras have either shifted towards YT & podcast content or moved into entirely other industries.
AI As New Creator Platform Vs End Of Everything
Hollywood is approaching AI very differently than YouTube, maybe partly due to how much attention YouTube has now taken from it.
AI as a whole is being viewed by many Hollywood creatives as a fight to the death, an existential threat.
But I think it’s much closer to YouTube than that.
AI video is a new platform, a technical set of tools that allows more people to create stuff than could before. Yes, there are issues with how these specific tools were trained in the first place but these tools cannot make great art on their own.
And I suspect it will be a long time before that’s remotely possible. AI alone cannot create Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad or even Suits.
Humans make those things because humans are the artists.
However, what AI video might be is a new way help new people express creative human ideas either on their own or with smaller amounts of people they needed before. A single human (or group of humans) could make something great.
Just like YouTube gave people in their bedrooms the ability to reach a much larger audience and then an entire ecosystem grew out of it, the same thing will likely happen with AI video and tools like Sora.
I have so many more thoughts on this but will table it for now and maybe write a bit more on it soon.
See you next week!
-Gavin
In this week’s AI For Humans: OpenAI’s 5.2 Update & More on Disney / OpenAI👇
3 Things To Know About AI Today
OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 Launches & Reactions Are… Mixed
In this week’s show, we (briefly) covered OpenAI’s launch of GPT-5.2 as the model had just come out when Kevin & I started to record.
Overall, my impression so far has been pretty good. It feels much faster to me and the answers feel strong. But, like most of you, I’m not pushing the model to do anything that approaches the edge of its capabilities.
However, if you check out the people chatting about the model in real-time, there’s a growing consensus that while OpenAI’s new model is better at some things and had some very good benchmarks, it seems to stuggle at times.
One of the things that’s hugely important when a new model launches is to have your own direct impressions of what it can do rather than listen to the masses.
And, of course, to have voices you trust in the world to point you in the right direction. I’m a huge fan of Simon Willison (Who still blogs! We love that!) for detailed looks a new models and, as I’ve mentioned here before, the very good YouTube videos from AI Explained.
The Washington Post’s Messy AI Podcast Experiement
Each time a non-AI native large organization takes the leap into AI product, there are going to be significant bumps along the way. And when that organization has quite a few people journalists who rely on their brand not hallucinating, those bumps might be significantly larger.
This week, the Post launched a new AI-podcast called “Your Personalized Podcast” which stitches together stories based on your reading history and powered by Eleven Labs.
But, according to Semphor, there’s been some problems (including halluncinations) with the project so far.
This is the messy AI + content world we live in…
I’m not a WaPo sub but I can see how this could be a useful way to get more news in your brain. I’m a heavy podcast listener and would prob at least give this a go if the NY Times or someone else tried it.
However, when your entire business relies not only on your readers trusting your information but also your writers trusting you’re not misrepresenting their information, the current state of AI makes it a little bit trickier.
SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin on AI
As deals like OpenAI/Disney start to dominate the conversation, it makes sense that the Hollywood unions get more vocal about where they stand on the matter.
As mentioned above, no actors rights are included in the Disney/Sora deal and that’s because using real-life actors in character in AI content has a lot of thorny, unresolved issues (rights, residuals, etc). It’s going to be a long, on-going conversation.
I was, however, impressed with this response from SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin (of Goonies and LOTR fame).
He clearly wants to protect actors. But also his willingness to ‘ride the wave’ of AI shows that he’s not blind to how quickly the world is changing.
We 💛 This: Suno’s v5 Weirdness
A few weeks back, I wrote about the success of AI-created music artist Xenia Monet and I’ve continued to stay fascinated with how fast that space is changing.
And, wanting to see what’s actually possible now, I’ve also been doing my own experimenting, using Suno’s new v5 model to make some “music” of my own.
I put “music” in quotes here because I’m not entirely sure what to call AI music really, or at least my version of it.
“Legal Disclaimers” (my Suno handle) definitely won’t be for everyone (not for many to be honest) but what I’ve found fascinating is how kind of handmade you can make AI music feel if you push it in that direction, specifically using Suno’s weirdness setting. Tape warbles, crunchy drums, vocal strangeness are all things that make it feel less perfect.
I’m purposefully trying to get the model to behave in strange ways, some human-like but some not-at-all-human, making it do things that prob most people aren’t.
Is this ‘music’ though? I’m not sure.
Technically, of course it is. They are songs. You listen to them. I wrote the lyrics and have been developing a persona obsesed with digital culture so there’s a lot of me in there too. But, then again, I didn’t play the instruments, didn’t sing the lyrics, etc.
Either way, check out my prompts for these songs (I’ve left them all in there) and some of the people I’ve followed on the platform for examples of how to push these models out of ‘clean and perfect mode’ into something else entirely.
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