OpenAI’s Sora just dropped a trippy music video to fan the AI hype flames

The polarizing AI video generator continues to intrigue the public.

Credit: Mashable photo / Mike Pearl

OpenAI still hasn’t divulged when Sora will be available — or details about its training data — but that hasn’t stopped the company from cultivating intrigue by releasing a music video created by the AI video generator.

On Wednesday, OpenAI posted the music video for a song called “Worldweight” by indie musician August Kamp. The video, made with Sora, is a compilation of dreamlike scenes like a giant crystal in a garden, psychedelic glowing plants, and grainy archival-esque footage of underwater coral reefs. The visuals are all very befitting of a musical vibe reminiscent of electronic artists Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin.

When OpenAI announced Sora in February, it amplified the murky ethical and legal generative AI conversation. Existing questions about training data, copyright infringement, and job replacement regarding ChatGPT and DALL-E are now asked of Sora.

We have some answers, but nothing specific yet. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati said Sora was trained on “publicly available data and licensed data,” but didn’t know if that included videos from YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

When asked about the potential upheaval of filmmaking and creative industries, Murati reiterated OpenAI’s line of getting early feedback from a select group of testers. “We want people in the film industry and creators everywhere to be a part of informing how we develop it further,” she said to the Journal. The reportedly slow, deliberate rollout hasn’t stopped OpenAI from courting Hollywood film studios and agents.

For Kamp, using Sora to make her video was “how the song has always ‘looked'” in her mind. “That’s what I think is special about this tool. I get to share what was once locked behind my shut eyes – all alone,” she said in an Instagram post.

That’s all to say, the polarizing new technology is both terrifying and exciting, depending on who you talk to.

Cecily is a tech reporter at Mashable who covers AI, Apple, and emerging tech trends. Before getting her master’s degree at Columbia Journalism School, she spent several years working with startups and social impact businesses for Unreasonable Group and B Lab. Before that, she co-founded a startup consulting business for emerging entrepreneurial hubs in South America, Europe, and Asia. You can find her on Twitter at @cecily_mauran.

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