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OpenAI's Sora uses generative AI to instantly create short videos based on written commands

The creator of ChatGPT is now venturing into the world of artificial intelligence (AI) powered video. Meet Sora - OpenAI's new text-to-video generator. The tool, which the San Francisco-based company unveiled Wednesday, uses generative AI to instantly create short videos based on written commands.

Sora isn't the first to showcase such technology. Industry analysts point to the high quality of the tool's videos showcased so far, noting that its introduction marks a big step forward for OpenAI and the future of text-to-video generation in all generations.

What can Sora do, can I keep using it?

Sora is a text-to-video generator - it uses generative AI to create a video up to 60 seconds long based on text. The model can also create videos from existing still images. Generative AI is a potentially new branch of AI. Examples include chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and image generators like DALL-E and Midjourney.

Finding an AI system for video generation is newer and more complex but based on some of the same technologies.

From imagination to video in seconds:

Illustration of a scene: a playful puppy chasing colorful butterflies through a field of sunflowers. With a few clicks, Sora takes your content and stitches together a hot video. No more struggling with clunky interfaces or pixelated animations. With some natural-looking movement, Sora creates stunning images, turning your imagination into reality.

Sora is not yet available for public use and there is a lot we don’t know yet. But after Wednesday's announcement, the company shared a few sample videos Sora has created to show what they can do.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, also visited X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and asked social media users to submit ideas early. He later posted really extensive videos that responded to inspiration like "two gold recoveries doing a podcast on a mountain and bike racing in the ocean with different animals as athletes riding a drone which contains camera images".

What other AI-powered video tools are available?

OpenAI Sora is not the first of its kind. Companies like Google, Meta, and startup Runway ML have demonstrated such technology.

However, industry analysts highlight the perceived quality and impressive length of Sora's videos shared so far.

Fred Hawemeyer, U.S. Attorney and the head of AI and software research at Macquarie said the launch of Sora was a big step for the business.

What are the potential risks?

While Sora's abilities have wowed observers since Thursday's launch, concerns also remain about the ethical and social implications of AI-powered video consumption. Havemeyer points to greater risk in a potentially flat 2024 election cycle, for example.

Having a "potentially magical" way of making a video that looks and feels genuine creates a lot of issues in politics and beyond, he added - referring to fraud, propaganda, and information by worrying about injustice.

At the same time, OpenAI released a few details about how Sora was built. The OpenAI technical report did not identify the images and video sources used to train Sora - and did not immediately respond to a request for further comment on Friday.

Sora's release also comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed by some authors and The New York Times against OpenAI and its subsidiary Microsoft over copyrighted works used for ChatGPT training.

Conclusion: As OpenAI continues to push the boundaries of AI research with projects like Sora, the broader implications of this development are sparking thought and discussion in the tech community and society at large.