From NPR
OpenAI’s Sora app may be going away, but its legacy will be the spread of AI video slop
By Geoff Brumfiel
Barely six months after its launch, OpenAI is ending an app that could generate AI video at the click of a button.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
OpenAI has announced it is shutting down an app that could make AI-generated videos with the click of a button. NPR’s Geoff Brumfiel reports on how it already changed the internet forever.
GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: The app was called Sora, and it worked like this. Users typed in a brief description of what they wanted to see and Sora would generate a 10-second video that looked completely real, stuff like police body cam footage of a dog driving a car...
BRUMFIEL: That video was completely fake, as were other Sora videos of bombs falling in the Mideast, Venezuelans celebrating the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro and much, much more. Sora caused problems for OpenAI. There were accusations of copyright violations. And it gobbled up computing power generating all those videos. The company did not say why it stopped the app. But AI video slop will probably be Sora’s greatest legacy, says Hany Farid, a professor at UC Berkeley who specializes in studying digital images. The app only lasted six months. But now?
HANY FARID: Every single video, every image, everything is now in doubt...
Hany Farid is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences and the School of Information at UC Berkeley.
