The artificial intelligence company OpenAI announced Tuesday it’s discontinuing its video-making application Sora, which became a sensation last autumn but triggered widespread anxiety about fake content creation.
In a short announcement posted on social media Tuesday, OpenAI revealed it was “saying goodbye to the Sora app” and promised to provide details later about helping users save their existing creations.
“What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing,” the company stated.
The creators of ChatGPT launched Sora in September, hoping to compete for the viewership and advertising revenue that short video platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Meta’s Instagram and Facebook generate.
However, advocacy organizations, researchers, and technology experts increasingly voiced worries about allowing users to generate AI videos from simple text descriptions, warning this could lead to widespread creation of unauthorized intimate imagery and convincing fake videos mixed with less harmful artificial content.
The company had to take action against AI-generated content featuring celebrities and historical figures like Michael Jackson, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mister Rogers in bizarre scenarios, but only responded after family representatives and performers’ unions complained.
Disney, which partnered with OpenAI in 2023 to incorporate its characters into Sora, released a statement Tuesday saying it acknowledges “OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere.”
“We appreciate the constructive collaboration between our teams and what we learned from it, and we will continue to engage with AI platforms to find new ways to meet fans where they are while responsibly embracing new technologies that respect IP and the rights of creators,” Disney’s statement continued.
