New Sora Demo from OpenAI [video]

I'm particularly impressed by the way Sora generates crashing waves here. Truly breathtaking stuff.

I fully realize there's no meaningful sense in which these models simulate physics, but it's simultaneously very difficult to deny that their output is a strong approximation of reality (at least visually).

I wonder if anyone seriously starts to model physics by throwing huge amounts of AI compute at AI models, rather than attempting to model reality.

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It looks weak, I think there have been better ones.

I'm actually pretty shocked they released this, it really suffers in quite a few places. The technology is clearly incredible, but I do wonder if they're trying to do too much too soon with this. Are the real applications much more targetted augmentation of existing video rather than these massive generations from scratch.

It's not safety testing or the election that is keeping sora out of your hands it's the uncanny valley. Why interrupt your competitors when they are making the mistake of publishing repulsive things with their name on it and producing B-grade content that will make your curated stuff look AAA and save the day.

The aloof cloud surfer scene helps suspend some disbelief as your eyes are diverted trying to work out what liquid cloud interactions should be. It isn't really workable unless all your output revolves around brainbusting novel physics. Maybe this works for music videos until it gets overplayed.

The main way things get considered highly produced enough to break boredom is to stretch a trend a little beyond expectation in a pleasing way. Think about how fight scenes have changed considerably with no technological changes but always along a trend. It's tough to define a trend and how acceptable a stretch is.

It takes more than melding scenes into each other to make a final product, there is audience back and forth to consider at every level that perhaps AI alone cannot keep up with.