On Tuesday, a group of 16 artists unveiled OpenAI's unreleased text-to-video generator to the public.
IN an open letter directed “Corporate AI Overlords” and posted at it hosting platform Hugging Face, the artists explained that they got early access to Sora in exchange for testing her. They said they were not against AI as an artistic tool and would not have been invited to the program alongside around 300 other artists if they were.
However, they now believe that OpenAI was trying to use their feedback to “artwash” or tell other artists that Sora is useful. They also blamed OpenAI for not compensating them for their efforts.
“Artists are not your unpaid R&D,” the artists wrote. “Hundreds of artists provide unpaid work through bug testing, feedback and experimental work for the program for a $150 billion company.”
The artists claimed that OpenAI controlled which AI-generated videos it made public by forcing any shared video created with Sora to receive the company's approval. They accused OpenAI of making the early access program less about creative criticism and more about free PR for the company and said they were not “PR puppets”.
In an effort to fight back, the creators unveiled Sora to the public on Tuesday and allowed a wider group of users to experiment with the tool for free. OpenAI closed early access to Sora after the leak had been live for three hours; the tool posted to Hugging Face is no longer functional.
An OpenAI spokesperson he said Washington Post that participation in the Sora early access program “is voluntary, with no obligation to provide feedback or use the tool.”
Related: Here's what Sora, OpenAI's Text-to-Video Creator, can really do
OpenAI Sora announced in February, with CEO Sam Altman asking the people at X to create videos. At that point, the company decided not to make the tool available to the public.
https://t.co/qbj02M4ng8 pic.twitter.com/EvngqF2ZIX
– Sam Altman (@sama) February 15, 2024
In July, OpenAI released multiple videos of artists created using Sora, including a two-minute, nine-second video created by the artist Tammy Lovin that brings the surreal sights to life.
OpenAI was worth it 157 billion dollars at the time of writing.