OpenAI said Monday it would do more to stop users of its AI video generation app Sora from creating clips with the likenesses of actors and other celebrities after actor Bryan Cranston and the union representing film and TV actors raised concerns that deepfake videos were being made without the performers’ consent.

Actor Bryan Cranston, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and several talent agencies said they struck a deal with the ChatGPT maker over the use of celebrities’ likenesses in Sora. The joint statement highlights the intense conflict between AI companies and rights holders like celebrities’ estates, movie studios and talent agencies — and how generative AI tech continues to erode reality for all of us.

Sora, a new sister app to ChatGPT, lets users create and share AI-generated videos. It launched to much fanfare three weeks ago, with AI enthusiasts searching for invite codes. But Sora is unique among AI video generators and social media apps; it lets you use other people’s recorded likenesses to place them in nearly any AI video. It has been, at best, weird and funny, and at worst, a never-ending scroll of deepfakes that are nearly indistinguishable from reality.

Cranston noticed his likeness was being used by Sora users when the app launched, and the Breaking Bad actor alerted his union. The new agreement with the actors’ union and talent agencies reiterates that celebrities will have to opt in to having their likenesses available to be placed into AI-generated video. OpenAI said in the statement that it has «strengthened the guardrails around replication of voice and likeness» and «expressed regret for these unintentional generations.»

OpenAI does have guardrails in place to prevent the creation of videos of well-known people: It rejected my prompt asking for a video of Taylor Swift on stage, for example. But these guardrails aren’t perfect, as we’ve saw last week with a growing trend of people creating videos featuring Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. They ranged from weird deepfakes of the civil rights leader rapping and wrestling in the WWE to overtly racist content.

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The flood of «disrespectful depictions,» as OpenAI called them in a statement on Friday, is part of why the company paused the ability to create videos featuring King.

Bernice A. King, his daughter, last week publicly asked people to stop sending her AI-generated videos of her father. She was echoing comedian Robin Williams’ daughter, Zelda, who called these sorts of AI videos «gross.»

OpenAI said it «believes public figures and their families should ultimately have control over how their likeness is used» and that «authorized representatives» of public figures and their estates can request that their likeness not be included in Sora. In this case, King’s estate is the entity responsible for choosing how his likeness is used. 

This isn’t the first time OpenAI has leaned on others to make those calls. Before Sora’s launch, the company reportedly told a number of Hollywood-adjacent talent agencies that they would have to opt out of having their intellectual property included in Sora. But that initial approach didn’t square with decades of copyright law — usually, companies need to license protected content before using it — and OpenAI reversed its stance a few days later. It’s one example of how AI companies and creators are clashing over copyright, including through high-profile lawsuits.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)  

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle has a diverse mix of topics.  Remember when you see a word like «does» that it could have multiple meanings. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Deal me in.

Green group hint: I can get that.

Blue group hint: Hoops.

Purple group hint: The clicker.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Playing cards.

Green group: Takes on.

Blue group: N.B.A. teams.

Purple group: Things you can control with remotes.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is playing cards. The four answers are aces, jacks, kings and queens.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is takes on. The four answers are addresses, does, handles and tackles.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is N.B.A. teams. The four answers are Bucks, Bulls, Hornets and Spurs.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is things you can control with remotes.  The four answers are drones, garage doors, televisions and Wiis.

With 2025 coming to a close, so is the «Year of the Ninja» for video games. What kicked off in a big way with a surprise remaster of 2008’s Ninja Gaiden 2 Black and Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, now ends with the release of Ninja Gaiden 4. 

Developed in partnership with longtime series studio Team Ninja and action game specialists PlatinumGames, Ninja Gaiden 4 is the first new 3D entry in the franchise since 2012, following the retro 2D release of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound in July. As expected from a series known for its fast-paced slashing action, Ninja Gaiden 4 delivers plenty of stylish combat — but not much beyond that.

Ninja Gaiden 4 introduces a new protagonist, Yakumo, who replaces longtime series hero Ryu Hayabusa. It’s a similar move to what publisher Tecmo Koei did with Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. As part of the Raven clan, a rival of Ryu’s Dragon clan, Yakumo doesn’t differ that much from the series’ previous main character. Don’t worry, Ryu fans: He does show up in the game. 

Yakumo’s quest in Ninja Gaiden 4 is to defeat the Dark Dragon, an evil deity who has been the series’ primary villain. Standing in Yakumo’s way is the Divine Dragon Order, which defends the beast and controls the futuristic Tokyo setting of the game. 

Does the story make a lot of sense? Not really, except to fans who already know the ins and outs of the Ninja Gaiden lore. Does that matter? Absolutely not, because all you need to know is where to go to slice up more enemies, which Yakumo is stellar at. 

Go Ninja Go

To say Ninja Gaiden 4’s action is fast is almost an understatement, which is to be expected. The series was already focused on rapid combat that requires quick reactions, even prior to PlatinumGames’ involvement. The developer took on Ninja Gaiden 4 after revolutionizing the hack-and-slash action game genre with the Bayonetta series and games like Nier: Automata. 

If you’ve played plenty of hack-and-slash games, Ninja Gaiden 4’s combat formula will be familiar. Yakumo has weak and heavy attacks, and chaining these together creates your standard combos. The more enemies he defeats, the more money and points he gets to unlock new moves and weapon skills. Some of the new moves extend Yakumo’s combos for longer sequences of attacks and against more enemies, while others are defensive, allowing him to unleash a powerful riposte after parrying an enemy attack.

Yakumo starts off his journey with his twin blades, but he finds more weapons throughout the game. A favorite of mine is the Magashuti staff that has a long reach to attack multiple enemies as Yakumo spins it around himself. 

Where Yakumo differs greatly from Ryu is his Bloodraven form. Unleashed when attacking with the left trigger held down, it changes Yakumo’s weapon to do greater damage. The Magashuti, for example, will take the form of a giant hammer whenever Yakumo uses his Bloodraven form. Certain enemies and bosses have armor that can deflect or reduce the power of Yakumo’s attack, so you’ll need to switch to Bloodraven form to break that armor. 

All of these mechanics make for unrivaled action. Players who spend enough time practicing will engage in beautiful dances of slashing weapons. The fact is, there are times when the action feels just a bit too fast, even for my veteran gaming reflexes. Trying to maneuver to certain areas or to talk with a non-playable character sometimes had me jumping off walls while hardly touching the controller. It almost takes more work to keep Yakumo still, especially after unlocking so many of his skills. There was also an instance when I did a finishing move to an enemy, and the animation pushed me out of bounds, causing me to have to reload to my last checkpoint. 

Arguably, the biggest frustration for me was the lock-on button. It was not intuitive at all, as it had no rhyme or reason for what it was locking onto. Even when I was fighting just the boss, it still never fully locked onto it as every other action game does. 

Also, what might be a bit of a downer for some Ninja Gaiden fans, this entry in the franchise is noticeably the easiest of the bunch. Thanks to healing items and equipable accessories, I died maybe once or twice per chapter. If a certain boss kills you too many times, the game will give you free items and even an NPC to help. For those who want more of a challenge, there’s a higher difficulty option available, but players with reasonable skill should be able to coast through the game otherwise. 

A Feast for Ninja Eyes

Another mainstay of the Ninja Gaiden franchise is the beautiful visuals. As the game takes place in a futuristic Japan, the development team really leaned into the cyberpunk-like look of a city bathed in neon and glass. 

This excels in the moments when Yakumo has to traverse in the most ninja ways, such as sliding on the train rails high above the city or gliding on rushing winds that blow through the mountain pass. These are the moments where you don’t have to worry about enemies attacking or creating the fanciest combos. You can just look around and take in these beautiful graphics. 

Combine these visuals with an excellent soundtrack and solid voice acting, and you have a presentation worthy of being included in the Ninja Gaiden series. 

Despite these quality elements, Ninja Gaiden 4 is a good reboot but not revolutionary. PlatinumGames resurrected the franchise 13 years after the last main entry, but didn’t take it in any different direction that would give this mass appeal to the gaming public. It’s an exciting 7 to 8 hours to beat, but I didn’t feel like jumping right back in.

Ninja Gaiden 4 will not be up for Game of the Year, or likely even considered one of the best games in the series, but that doesn’t matter. This is a game for anyone who just wants to feel like a badass ninja carving up enemies in the blink of an eye, because sometimes that’s all you want. 

Ninja Gaiden 4 will be released on Oct. 21 for $70 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles. It will be available for Xbox Game Pass on day 1.