Use Sora 2 to tell stories

Sora 2 is the talk of the AI world. It's a new text to video generator from OpenAI. What distinguishes Sora 2 from its predecessors is the fidelity of its video generation and its inclusion of quality sound. Improved text-to-video makes it possible to communicate legal events and concepts in ways that resonate with students of all ages.

First, let’s see what a rank amateur (trust me) can create with Sora 2—along with some help from AI. Below we have a vignette depicting the crucial event in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964). Does this video replace an understanding of the complex commerce clause issues raised by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or the strategic interplay between that case, the Civil Rights Cases, and other precedents? Absolutely not. It is not a substitute for legal analysis. What it can do, however, is spark in some students an immediate, visual reflection on the realities implicated by the law, expressed in a medium they already know well. It, like the Google Storybook Gem covered in a prior blog entry, is a way for students to engage with law artistically. And if students themselves begin creating Sora 2 videos—quite possibly better than most faculty—that process becomes one more way to turn passive reading and underlining into active learning.

Here's another example. It's Oliver Wendell Holmes reading particularly noxious passages of his opinion in Buck v. Bell (1927), in which he finds no constitutional problem with the sterilization of a young woman that the state had conveniently designated as "feeble minded." It is one thing to read, "It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society ..." and another to see those words spoken in a Supreme Court setting by a "Holmes" himself. The import of the words becomes a lot clearer in this multimedia format.

Critics may note that the videos are short and that there are flaws in the second video. Holmes is cut off in the middle of his reading. This law professor has not yet figured out how to extend videos as other Sora users appear to have managed. (Help appreciated). And in the video below, depicting that chestnut of contract law, Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co. (1893), the plaintiff woman appears to voice lines actually spoken by a male character. All the kinks are not yet worked out in this initial release of the app. But I suspect that in a year this and other limitations will disappear, leaving legal educators to ponder the best uses for a new frontier technology. Those pondering too long may find themselves eclipsed by clever students or technology companies who seize an opportunity to find evocative ways of communicating legal materials.

Sora 2 also lets you courageously inject yourself into videos through a feature called cameos. You provide a brief recording of yourself speaking some numbers; within a minute you can insert your avatar into scenes. Here, a period-costumed version of me wanders through the streets of 1870s New Orleans in a documentary simulation describing the scene that motivated The Slaughterhouse Cases.

A cool feature of Sora 2 is its resemblance to TikTok, a pleasure forbidden to me by Texas law but which, I hear tell, is quite popular among the younger set (until it, perhaps like Facebook, becomes passe). Users share videos, follow content creators they admire (I already have at least two), and can remix content. There is the chance for depictions like that below of James Marshall valiantly trying to deliver the Adams' commissions to William Marbury to go viral.

Notes

1. For those eager to get started, you need an invite code. A thoughtful student was gracious enough to donate one to me. Be patient.
2. OpenAI is very protective of its app. It originally refused to let me create a documentary of me wandering around filthy 1870s New Orleans to evoke the Slaughterhouse Cases because, I am guessing, the images of pig entrails rotting in the gutters that I had described in the prompt might offend. It refused to let me have Justice Holmes speak the last two sentences of Buck v. Bell – "Three generations of imbeciles are enough" – which may say something more about the opinion's contents than Sora 2's guardrails. So, you may find yourself periodically annoyed at OpenAI's confusion of historic reality with contemporary sensibilities.
3. Lest you think video production is insufficiently intellectual, I partly agree. As I said earlier, a ten second clip of a black family being turned away in the rain at a segregated hotel is not the same thing as understanding the intellectual history of the Commerce Clause or the state action doctrine. Still, there is an art to figuring out precisely the audio and visual aspects of a case that can be captured in a few seconds that are likely to evoke thought. Consider Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer (1952). Showing sullen workers being forced back to the mills would miss the point: Truman refused to use Taft–Hartley’s injunction route (enacted over his 1947 veto) and instead ordered a seizure. A sharper scene would depict Truman’s seizure order—or his April 1952 appeal to Congress for statutory authority, which the Senate rejected, underscoring one reason the Court found no legislative backing for his action. Irony and hypocrisy end up sculpting presidential emergency powers.
4. AI can help. I am definitely not a scriptwriter. I don't have a rich video vocabulary. Here's a prompt that worked well.

Name constitutional law cases whose essence could be captured on a ten second video. Don't give me symbolic representations of the case. For example, this is not good. "A shot of a school entrance with a "WHITES ONLY" sign. A gavel slams down shattering the sign. A Black child and a white child then walk through the doorway together, smiling." Instead, I want realistic scenes depicting events that gave rise to the case. By way of example, for Marbury v. Madison, I would want James Marshall on a cold March day in 1801 riding a horse galloping around Georgetown. The rider would have a satchel bearing commissions and attempting unsuccessfully to get a commission to William Marbury before noon. Give me five such examples.

A dialog that began this way and moved into contract law produced descriptions like this:

"Hadley places a large broken crankshaft on the counter of a shipping office in 1850 England. Hadley says to the clerk baxendale and a matter of fact tone “this is the broken shaft from our Mill, which is stopped.” Baxendale nods while filling out a form, treats it as a routine delivery, and places the part with a pile of other goods to be shipped, showing no understanding of any special urgency. Pixar style cartoon."

5. There may be some areas of the law where video production is more challenging. Prompts, for example, that generate videos on perfection of a security interest or application of antitrust merger guidelines may not immediately come to mind. But this challenge, I think, makes it all the more fun. Perhaps faculty could award Emmy equivalents for the best video in obscure or technical fields of law?
6. If you like my Sora 2 videos, follow me at mathlawguy on the app. I am, for the moment, the foremost creator of legal-case-AI-generated videos in the world.
7. This is your reward for getting to the bottom. I have an invite code for Sora 2 that I will give to a subscriber. Just email me. First come, first served.
8. Last one today, I promise. An adaptation of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1968).