Sora, OpenAI’s video platform, is shutting down: What to know

Expert explains future of Artificial Intelligence

Vice President Kamala Harris spoke Wednesday at an Artificial Intelligence conference in London, addressing the Biden administration's plans to address concerns over A.I. Simon Wilby, the creator of 1Voice A.I. joined LiveNOW from FOX's Mike Pache to discuss the concerns and potential solutions.

SAN FRANCISCO - OpenAI announced that it will be shutting down its video generation platform Sora. 

The Wall Street Journal first reported OpenAI's decision to pull the plug. 

Sora shutting down

The tech giant revealed the news in a post on X on Tuesday. 

"We’re saying goodbye to Sora," the company wrote. "To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing." 

What is Sora? 

Big picture view:

Sora is OpenAI’s social media app made up of videos generated by artificial intelligence.

The app taps into the appeal of being able to make a video of yourself doing just about anything that can be imagined, in styles ranging from anime to highly realistic. 

In this photo illustration, the logo of Sora, a social media app developed by OpenAI, is displayed on a smartphone screen.(Credit: VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

According to the company, Sora provides the "newest AI models for image, video, and voiceover," alongside assets and editing tools. 

Concern grows over dangers of AI

The backstory:

The company behind ChatGPT released Sora in September as an attempt to capture the attention, and potentially advertising dollars, that follow short-form videos on TikTok, YouTube or Meta-owned Instagram and Facebook.

But a growing chorus of advocacy groups, academics and experts expressed concern about the dangers of letting people create AI videos on just about anything they can type into a prompt, leading to the proliferation of nonconsensual images and realistic deepfakes in a sea of less harmful "AI slop."

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OpenAI was forced to crack down on AI creations of public figures — among them, Michael Jackson, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mister Rogers — doing outlandish things, but only after an outcry from family estates and an actors’ union.

Disney, which made a deal with OpenAI last year to bring its characters to Sora, said in a statement Tuesday that it respects "OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere."

"We appreciate the constructive collaboration between our teams and what we learned from it, and we will continue to engage with AI platforms to find new ways to meet fans where they are while responsibly embracing new technologies that respect IP and the rights of creators," Disney's statement said.