There are bigger fish to fry, more important products to build than a petty fight with the liberal arts world that has scoffed at tech barons, branded them as billionaire oligarchs who hate to pay their fair share of taxes, are greedy, want to hijack the government, and are everything wrong with the world today.
In the early days, just a few years ago, when AI still seemed like an exciting new toy, making products that would render creatives obsolete seemed like a noble course for the Silicon Valley set. AI should write better, make better art, better music, better videos. It was in the milieu that OpenAI rolled out Sora AI, an ambitious video generator model that will be the Disney of the future.
But as competitors flood the space and investors dump billions into the industry, the time to tighten seat belts and pursue more productive, useful ambitions has come.
The solution that investors hope AI would solve is less “How can I use AI to make more videos?” and more, “How can I use AI to provide an excellent audit of years of company spending, give accurate health advice, find the cure for cancer, and start a new civilisation on Mars?"
This week OpenAI got the memo. The company said it would shut down Sora and focus on other areas “that will help people solve real-world, physical tasks,” with Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of applications, telling employees that the company “cannot miss this moment because we are distracted by side quests.”
But video-generating models have not all come to an end. Our newsletter feature story this week dives into why OpenAI decided to shut down Sora and offered alternative models you can try.
— Dennis, Managing Editor
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