OpenAI pulls back Sora test after artist criticism, continues to delay public release

The news: OpenAI released—and quickly rolled back—a limited alpha test of its Sora text-to-video generation tool.

• A coalition of artists criticized OpenAI for not allowing their feedback on Sora to be released without approval from the startup’s team and called the early-access test a form of artwashing.
• “We are not against the use of AI technology as a tool for the arts. … What we don’t agree with is how this artist program has been rolled out,” the letter states.

The protesting participants briefly leaked access to Sora on Hugging Face, which showed it’s still limited to 10-second clips.

The criticism: The petition against the alpha test, which was signed by several hundred artists, homed in on the threat to creative laborers posed by generative AI (genAI) and OpenAI’s request for unpaid bug testing and feedback.

• Most alpha tests don’t pay participants, though some compensate for qualified testers or offer discounts on final products.
• An OpenAI spokesperson stated that participation in the test was voluntary and only required artists to use it responsibly and not share confidential details about the model.

What’s next? Despite its optimism about Sora’s capabilities, OpenAI is giving no clarity about when it will make the tool available publicly.

• In October, OpenAI CPO Kevin Weil said that the tool is being delayed to “perfect the model,” firm up safety guardrails, and scale compute.
• However, it’s unclear how much of an appetite there will be for Sora-made creative work once it is released: 68% of US adults prefer movies that are human-driven, rather than AI-generated, per Ipsos.

Our take: There may be larger hurdles than computing for OpenAI to achieve a positive reaction for Sora if creatives are hesitant to use the tool and if audiences aren’t interested in seeing its output on screens.

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