Briana Fonseca
Crimson Chronicle Reporter
Imagine you’re casually scrolling through TikTok, like you always do, but you stop on a particular video. You pause, wondering “What am I looking at?” It’s probably some crazy, absurd, seemingly impossible, video like, a dog riding a horse or a cat dancing to the latest TikTok dance. This is possible thanks to the company which brought us ChatGPT: Open AI. On Sept. 30, 2025, Sora AI officially opened for public use, and since then social media has been running rampant with all kinds of whacky videos. This revolutionary technology has sparked discussions among teenagers regarding its implications. Zooming into our school community, opinions on Sora AI range from all sides of the spectrum.
There are some students who are on the fence about the entire aspect of Sora AI. Some are not bothered by the new artificial intelligence video creator or they completely hate the entire idea about it. One student was particularly nervous about what our future was shaping to be thanks to AI.
“It makes me feel more terrified than excited,” SAS Senior Deniz Gyulbyuken said, “That’s because we are using AI more and more in our daily activities.”
Despite her concerns, Deniz still believes authenticity can survive in a world full of digital illusions.
“Despite the frequent use of AI, I think authenticity on the internet is still good,” Deniz said, “You can write a post or text created with the help of AI, and it will be real if it contains your thoughts or emotions.”
Still, Deniz believes the real fear isn’t the technology itself, but rather it’s how easily people might come to overly depend on it.
“What scares me is not the use of AI itself, but the fact that we use it on a regular basis, even for everyday, simple things,” Deniz said, “I think that in the near future, we will increasingly rely only on their answers.”
While Deniz views Sora AI with caution, other students at Hollywood High take a more neutral stance. They see it as just another creative tool rather than a threat. One of them is SAS senior Elias Dominguez, who sees both the benefits and the consequences of this new technology.
“I’m neither excited nor creeped out about Sora [AI],” Elias said, “I’ve seen it has been used to create funny entertaining wise videos for viewers.”
“The AI has been made to help creators design these videos to make way for their never ending imagination.” Elias continued.
However, Elias admits that with the explosive use of Sora AI, content has become harder to tell what’s real online.
“I feel that with more and more AI [platforms] being created in terms of social media uploads it’s getting a little bit out of control,” Elias said. “In part the videos may be semi-real as I believe the authentic video had to actually be filmed unless the video as a whole was generated.”
Tech experts say that Sora AI will have a dramatic impact on authenticity on social media platforms. In particular, a large sector that will be affected by the rise of AI technologies is news. In the World Press Institute, a survey was conducted which said around 51% of the Gen Z teens (from 14-18) get news from social media feeds which places placing it above other sources like TV news and online articles.
In an article for Axios, managing editor of technology Scott Rosenberg wrote, “Feeds, memes and slop are the building blocks of a new media world where verification vanishes, unreality dominates, everything blurs into everything else and nothing carries any informational or emotional weight.”
Sharing similar concerns, New York Times reporters Tiffany Hsu, Stuart A. Thompson and Steven Lee Myer shared that during their experience using Sora AI for the first time, they were left shocked by its features. The app had an astonishing ability to make disinformation “extremely easy and extremely real.”
In the end, Sora AI has left many teens feeling both amazed and unsure. It’s fun to watch what people can create with it, funny, creative videos with mind-blowing visuals that seem too real to be fake. Yet it’s also a little scary to think about how easily these tools can blur the line between truth and fiction. For students at our school, it’s a mix of curiosity and caution. They are excited about the possibilities AI can bring, yet they’re aware that it could change how we see the world digitally. As Sora continues to evolve, one thing’s for sure. We’ll all have to look a little closer before deciding what’s real and what’s not.
