OpenAI launches Sora video generator
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
OpenAI demos a Sora video transformation of charging robots in a desert into wooly mammoths. Image: OpenAI
ChatGPT maker OpenAI released its AI-generated video tool called Sora for general use by its paying customers Monday.
Why it matters: OpenAI isn't the first to create an AI tool that takes in verbal prompts and churns out video — but as with ChatGPT, Sora will put the capability into millions of users' hands.
- That could potentially unleash a wave of creativity, as the company suggests. It could also violate many creators' rights, as much of the professional video industry argues.
The big picture: OpenAI's beta release of Sora in February inspired both excitement and fear.
- The company then said it would do wide testing with creatives and red-teaming with security experts before its release to the public.
What they're saying: "We don't want the world to just be text," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a live-streamed announcement Monday.
- "[Video] is important to our culture," Altman added.
The company said in a statement that the latest version of Sora, which will be offered as a standalone product to ChatGPT Plus and Pro customers, is "significantly faster" than the one it previewed.
- It lets you generate videos up to 20 seconds long.
- Representatives of OpenAI's Sora team said the tool was "not about generating feature-length movies" but more of a way to try out new ideas.
- OpenAI admits Sora still has considerable limitations. "It often generates unrealistic physics and struggles with complex actions over long durations," the company said in a blog post.
Between the lines: The new version of Sora adds some new wrinkles, including the ability to drop images in as prompts and a timeline editor that lets users add new prompts at specific moments in a video.
OpenAI says it understands that putting Sora into so many hands could cause problems, acknowledging that OpenAI "has a target on its back."
- Altman said the company wants to prevent illegal use of the tool, "but we also want to balance that with creative expression."
- OpenAI's moderation will be "starting a little conservative," but if it "doesn't quite get it right, just give us that feedback," Altman said.
- Users' ability to upload images of people will be "limited at launch," OpenAI's blog post said.
Friction point: Sora will be available globally, except in Europe and the U.K. for now — presumably because of stringent EU privacy laws.
