OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The next wave of AI disruption is here.
On Thursday, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, released a new product that allows users to create incredibly lifelike videos based solely on the words they type into a box. Video clips of an AI-generated woman walking down a neon-lined street in Tokyo, an astronaut wearing a knit woolen helmet, and a young man reading a book on a cloud raise the stakes in an already competitive AI industry. It’s increasing. And it heralds rapidly approaching changes that will almost certainly disrupt the entertainment and content production industries.
“If anyone thought the rate of progress in AI would slow, we are now seeing examples of the exact opposite every day,” Box CEO Aaron Levy said alongside a video of the Sora-generated clip. Yes,” he tweeted.
Sora, as OpenAI calls its new Text-to-Video product, isn’t exactly the first of its kind. Runway, an AI startup that has raised $263 million in funding, is hosting a film festival dedicated to artists who create films using text-to-video technology. There’s also Midjourney, which provides high-quality images from text.
But what’s most disturbing about the video OpenAI released Thursday is that in one clip, the fidelity created by the company’s AI model ranges from strands of hair on a person reading a book to puddles dotting the ground in Tokyo. The details are so realistic. scene. The idea of creating such a realistic video from a text prompt was not only impossible a few years ago, but also almost unimaginable with the tools and models of the time.
“It’s one of those things you tell yourself will come, and you think you’re ready for it, and you think it shouldn’t surprise you, but then you see it and it happens. “I didn’t expect to be surprised,” OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap tweeted.
The product highlights a breakthrough in AI technology, something futurists like Ray Kurzweil have long discussed. In his book “The AI Revolution: The Path to Superintelligence,” renowned technology writer Tim Urban ridiculed Kurzweil for predicting that the 21st century would be “1,000 times more advanced than the 20th century.” ing.
OpenAI’s goal is nothing less than to create artificial general intelligence, a version of AI that can perform most tasks as well or better than humans. Not everyone is convinced that such superintelligence is possible. However, the rapid progress of AI is evident in the number of new products being introduced. Just 14 months ago, ChatGPT transformed the tech industry by launching bots that can write poems, term papers, and have conversations that are nearly impossible to distinguish from human conversations. is.
Just last year, Midjourney’s AI-generated video was still receiving criticism for adding fingers to its hands. OpenAI’s Sora made this problem seem as old-fashioned as modem dial tone.
OpenAI’s latest offering is a breakthrough for an AI startup that was already focused on video.
Runway, a startup founded in 2018, has enjoyed a distinct advantage as it has spent years refining its model before other startups stepped in. Until now, no AI text-to-video conversion startup rivals have posed a threat to Runway’s products. It’s worth mentioning that while Runway is already in use in Hollywood and movies using its product have won him a whopping seven Oscars, OpenAI’s Sora has only created short videos so far. there is.
Following OpenAI’s announcement, Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela tweeted on Thursday, “It’s a game.”
Perhaps the biggest hurdle in OpenAI’s video push is the need to defend its turf and continue to advance in various areas amid increasing competition from ChatGPT and its image generation tool DALL-E. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has so far been good at staying ahead of the pack, raising $13 billion from Microsoft and reportedly offering hardware that can make his vision a reality. We are trying to raise more money to develop our infrastructure.
The video published by OpenAI on Thursday is as impressive as it is a selective and exclusive showcase of the technology’s best achievements. How well the technology performs overall will determine whether OpenAI can make it to Hollywood as it looks to expand its addressable market and take on AI rivals. Game Start.
