‘I Am Absolutely Terrified’: OpenAI’s New Project Isn’t ‘Broadly’ Available Yet — But It’s Already Setting Off Alarm Bells

The company behind ChatGPT wants to “help people solve problems that require real-world interaction.”

By Amanda Breen edited by Jessica Thomas Feb 16, 2024

Key Takeaways

  • OpenAI’s new text-to-video model, Sora, can generate videos up to a minute long based on any entered prompt.
  • OpenAI CEO Sam Altman crowdsourced prompt ideas on X to show off the technology.

Want to make a video of something that doesn’t exist but don’t have the technical skills to do so? Now, it doesn’t matter — if you can type it, you can see it.

On Thursday, OpenAI revealed its new text-to-video model, Sora, which can generate videos up to a minute long based on any prompt a user enters into a text box, though the technology is not yet available to the public, NBC News reported.

Related: Microsoft Invests Billions in OpenAI, Creator of ChatGPT

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman showed off the technology on X, where he crowdsourced possible prompts and used them to generate several videos, including one of turtles riding bikes across the ocean and another of dogs podcasting on a mountain.

OpenAI said in a blog post that its goal is to train “models that help people solve problems that require real-world interaction,” a prospect that’s exciting for many AI aficionados. But it’s concerning to people wary of the technology’s unchecked power amid the proliferation of deepfaked media of celebrities, politicians and private figures online — and in an election year.

“I am absolutely terrified that this kind of thing will sway a narrowly contested election,” Oren Etzioni, a professor at the University of Washington who specializes in artificial intelligence, told The New York Times. Etzioni is also the founder of True Media, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to identify disinformation online in political campaigns.

Related: ChatGPT Just Got a Game-Changing Update — Here’s What to Know

OpenAI said in a statement that it’s “not making this model broadly available in our products soon” and that it’s developing tools to determine when Sora generates a video and intends to embed metadata to flag the video’s origin, per NBC News.

Key Takeaways

  • OpenAI’s new text-to-video model, Sora, can generate videos up to a minute long based on any entered prompt.
  • OpenAI CEO Sam Altman crowdsourced prompt ideas on X to show off the technology.

Want to make a video of something that doesn’t exist but don’t have the technical skills to do so? Now, it doesn’t matter — if you can type it, you can see it.

On Thursday, OpenAI revealed its new text-to-video model, Sora, which can generate videos up to a minute long based on any prompt a user enters into a text box, though the technology is not yet available to the public, NBC News reported.

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Amanda Breen

Senior Features Writer at Entrepreneur
Entrepreneur Staff
Amanda Breen is a senior features writer at Entrepreneur.com. She is a graduate of Barnard College and received an MFA in writing at Columbia University, where she was a news fellow for the School of the Arts.

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