OpenAI is closing down its Sora video generator.
The move comes after concerns about deepfakes, misinformation and use of copyrighted characters. It also marks the end of the deal between Disney and OpenAI made last year, where the media giant was to invest $1bn and licence some of its characters to Sora.
In a social media post yesterday, the Sora team said: “We’re saying goodbye to the Sora app. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing.”
When OpenAI previewed its original Sora model in early 2024, it was immediately recognised as a leap forward in AI generated video. Reporting for Televisual in 2024, David Shapton said: “Sora, OpenAI’s astonishing new text-to-video model for generating photorealistic videos is so good that most people don’t give it a second glance: they just assume that it is video. It really is that good.”
Sora 2 and a stand alone app was released in September last year.
Yesterday’s social media post from the Sora team continued: “We’ll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on preserving your work.”
Pippa Considine
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