On February 15, OpenAI announced the red teaming of its text-to-video platform called Sora. It can create up to a minute-long video of high quality. It has caused concern to stock video producers, startup founders, actors and filmmakers.

OpenAI has not revealed about the data used to train Sora. When Facebook released its text-to-video model in 2022, it used 10.7 million Shutterstock videos and 3.3 million YouTube videos to train it. This information enables researchers to check for bias, and creators to know if their work is being exploited.

It is speculated by some gaming and AI experts that Sora could have been trained on the underlying physics engines of computer games. It is not sure since OpenAI will not disclose the information, as it did with its other AI models.

Since GPT-4 was tested for about six months before its release, Sora could also take the same time. It could be released in August 2024, just 3 months prior to the elections in the US.

Deepfakes of politicians generated by AI could affect the elections. OpenAI uses safety filters to keep their models away from violence, sexual content and hateful imagery. It is still impossible to know whether these AI systems will not be misused until they are in the market. Sora is likely to make a bigger impact judging from the use of ChatGPT by millions of people. It will put video generation capabilities into the hands of millions.

It is obvious that the secrecy OpenAI maintains about its new products is to keep ahead of the competitors. OpenAI is also enhancing its computing power to train its models — this strategy seems to have worked. This is the reason why Sam Altman is seeking trillions of dollars for a chip making unit.

OpenAI’s stated goal is to attain AI that surpasses our own capabilities. It puts products for the public to try out the transformative tech to reach that goal. That is the open part of OpenAI, while keeping the tactics part closed.