Sam Altman: Within a week, remind everyone why OpenAI is leading the way in AI

Not long ago, OpenAI and Sam Altman found themselves in the spotlight following the latter's departure from the company and his accidental return to the CEO position. This time OpenAI is back in the spotlight but for good reason.

The company, through Altman, announced its new AI tool called “Sora.” This AI model can create high-resolution videos, up to one minute long, from text dictated by users.

OpenAI says its goal with Sora is to teach AI “to understand the physical world in order to train models that will help people solve problems that require interaction with the real world.” The truth is that the company hasn't put as much effort into making its product look as exciting as it actually is.

Sora is able to create videos about anything. It can depict 19th century California or 3D animation that refers to productions of major companies in the entertainment industry.

Sora has competition but he's already “turned it off”.

At this point, it's worth noting that Sora is not the first AI tool for converting text to video. New York startup Runway, which is backed by Google and Nvidia, has a similar tool.

Meanwhile, Meta has a similar technology called Emu Video. Last month, Google rolled out its own version of text-to-video, called Lumiere.

None of the above efforts had a vision similar to that of the OpenAI tool. This is largely due to the fact that Altman is free to “promote” the technology, even though it is still in the experimental stage. It is notable that Sora is available to a limited audience.

Altman chose to introduce the new OpenAI tool through social media by interacting with people who follow him, rather than simply posting a presentation on a well-maintained site.

Specifically, Altman received requests from users on X and then posted relevant videos. Arguably the best YouTuber in the world, MrBeast, asked him for a video of a monkey playing chess in the park. Another user has two golden retrievers recording a podcast on top of the mountain.

In contrast to Altman's “direct” marketing, Google had shortly before introduced Gemini (formerly Bard) through a simple advertisement. While Gemini has made big leaps, it is far less prominent than OpenAI's tools.

The big fears Sora brings

In these cases, when the initial excitement wears off, concerns about how technology can be used for evil also begin. The launch of an AI model capable of producing impressive and believable videos could pose a major threat to the entertainment industry that has already expressed concerns culminating in strikes in Hollywood.

At the same time, there is great fear about how artificial intelligence will wreak havoc in the US elections. A fake video created with the help of artificial intelligence depicting Joe Biden or Donald Trump could directly influence voters.

Displaying such models confirms that artificial intelligence is developing daily at a rapid pace and that governments have been slow to take the necessary steps to regulate it.