Who is Sora, and Should We Be Scared?
I was scrolling through Twitter when I saw a video from OpenAI introducing us to their newest creation: Sora. To say I was flabbergasted would be an understatement because even though I knew that AI applications would come in diverse and interesting ways, I just wasn’t prepared to see something that…cool.
Sora is the new OpenAI model, your gateway to a world of limitless opportunities. Sora is more than simply an AI model; it is a visionary who creates worlds from text instructions.
First, I took a few minutes to admire the amazing creations that this new AI tool has created. It was just incredible. But then I felt something drop in my stomach as I thought,
What would this mean for the public?
I immediately started searching for what people thought about the AI model, and I definitely wasn’t disappointed because everyone was just voicing their opinions on how detrimental this could be!
Those screenshots were my exact thoughts. Even before text-to-video was created, we had enough problems with Deepfakes and virtual reality assault. But what are some ways that text-to-video would even benefit us?
- Efficiency and speed: Since text-to-video can generate content much faster than humans, we can say goodbye to producers and actors spending years to produce movies now, they can just put in a few prompts and boom! Everyone gets a movie, and the money comes in.
- Cost-Effective: Humans are just harder to maintain due to a couple of reasons: we have limited abilities, we are subject to human things like sickness and fatigue, and we need to be compensated for our hard work. But once text-to-video models are fully trained, there’s no need to have a team of actors and producers and the like. Just call in a few big shots and generate the rest!
- Scalability: AI doesn’t need 30-minute breaks during 8-hour shifts, nor does it need money to survive, so there’s no point in not utilizing it. AI can take on a lot of workloads and increase activities without requiring an increase in resources.
Now, those examples just seem to have negative connotations to them, and rightfully so. But there are still some ways that text-to-video can help us beyond entertainment, like, education.
Students use ChatGPT to learn, and it’s great even though it’s still a work in progress. Now that Sora AI is out, teachers and students can create or watch videos without having to get distracted by ads or spend hours animating class presentations.
Information dissemination, too, would become easier. Loads of information can be digested into smaller video summaries, and while that might bring up the problem of oversimplification of knowledge, it’s still a tool that could be useful.
Should we be scared of Sora?
Maybe, maybe not. For now, based on how issues with other AI models have been dealt with, it’s not unwarranted to feel a sort of dread. Thankfully, Sora AI hasn’t been released to the public yet, which is a good thing because it opens up various kinds of discussions, seeing as this technology will affect a lot of things and people.
OpenAI does have some measures in place that would help curb the potential dangers that those tools might pose to individuals and groups. Such as working with experts who specialize in bias and misinformation, as well as building tools that would make it easier for us to detect that something is Sora-generated.
Thank you for reading. Leave some thoughts in the comments!
