Sora 2 launch by Open AI, which many are terming as AI Tiktok made me think. Growing up in India during the 1980s, television was a simple ritual. Every evening, Doordarshan had our attention with its prime time shows. I’d sit cross-legged on the floor, eyes glued to whatever was airing. Sprawling family sagas of Buniyaad and Hum Log and the suspense with scares of Rahasyamayi Qila. Sundays were rare treat days with my favourite He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, but also epic journeys of Mahabharat and Chandrakanta whose opening theme songs I can still recite word to word, beat to beat. Byomkeysh Bakshi and Bharat Ek Khoj used to delight to no end.

These weren’t choices. These were the only options. We didn’t scroll. We tuned in and absorbed.

Arrival of cable TV shifted things a bit in the 1990s and beyond. Zee TV launched, then star plus, then sony and more. Antakashari, Boogie Woogie, CID swooned us. Cartoon Network, MTV et al gave us a bigger glimpse into the modern world beyond India. Then with OTTs in the late 2000s this just felt like a train that was turning into a rocketship of amazing content. Bigflix started the trend but Hotstar and Netflix just seemed to create a runway where that flight would just take off into the orbit. This was a time when Binging wasn’t a verb related to food anymore for me but for content. More felt like a progress.

Yet here’s the irony. Abundance has now become a paralysis inducing phenomenon for me. These days, I mostly squeeze in viewing content during meals. Spoon in one hand, remote in the other. But calling it viewing would be a stretch. What really happens is an endless loop of browsing. Scrolling through rows of thumbnails on Netflix, then jumping to Prime Video, and then JioHotstar or whatever. By the time I decide (or not), the plate’s empty and so is my will to watch something. The weight of infinite options. I still manage to watch some things, mostly anime, but it’s a deliberate determination to watch them through.

This hit home today again with the release of Sora 2. Life like video, realistic physics, even audio with perfectly synced dialogues, all wrapped up in a Tiktok like app for user generated clips.

I don’t have anything against AI generated art, far from it. Tools like this democratize creation, letting anyone create surreal stuff from their imagination. The same way many other tools have helped do in the past.

I just see the deluge that’s to come and I think, probably the time of content is over. Or soon will be, at least for me.

Or maybe something comes along that curates everything for me and makes me feel like watching things again.