When OpenAI introduced Sora earlier this year, many of us were surprised. Until that moment we had witnessed the impressive evolution of the generative artificial intelligence in the field of images. In a short time, DALL·E went from making modest creations such as avocado-shaped armchairs to material with a photorealistic appearance where textures, colors, lights and shadows stood out.
We had some reasons to think that something similar would end up happening in the world of video. The company led by Sam Altman had shown us a promising tool capable of generating amazing clips and later Mira Murati had promised that Sora would be publicly available this year. We are close to 2024 coming to an end, and Sora not only has not arrived, but he is involved in controversy.
Artists upset with OpenAI
OpenAI is not managing to launch its products as quickly as expected. At least that’s what Altman said on Reddit. The businessman pointed out that the company is prioritizing its computing resources to update existing models. Kevin Weil, the firm’s product manager, added that they still needed to refine the model and improve security, and to do so they needed more computing power, a scarce commodity at the moment.
The delay in the launch of Sora has allowed users to learn about very interesting alternatives such as Runway’s Gen-3 Alpha. OpenAI, which seemed destined to lead in the field of video generation, is beginning to take a backseat. But some people have been using Sora privately. These are artists who have had early access and who have created, for example, the Toys”R”Us advertisement.
Now, not everyone seems to be happy with OpenAI. A group of artists have protested against OpenAI by filtering access to the model. “We received access to Sora with the promise of being the first testersred team members and creative partners. However, we believe that we are instead being drawn into ‘artwashing’ to tell the world that Sora is a useful tool for artists,” they said on Hugging Face.
The group of artists further said that they provide unpaid labor “for a company valued at $150 billion” and that all content generated by Sora must be approved by OpenAI. Regarding the motivation for filtering access to the model, they explained that they hoped the company would be more open and friendly to artists by supporting art beyond public relations.
But Sora was available for about three hours on a public website. OpenAI decided suspend access to the tool to all users. We have to wait to find out what will happen with the tool. The AI company could restore preliminary access or also bring forward its launch. However, at the time of writing this article that is an unknown.
Images | OpenAI
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