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Goodbye to Sora

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Re: Goodbye to Sora

#381

Good riddence to bad trash. To me, this idea represents the absolute worst of the AI wave (out of a lot to choose from): a corporate controlled endless stream of the feelies to keep people plugged in and scrolling for nobody’s benefit except those in control of the output. If “entertainment” can be produced algorithmically to a volume and level of quality that the masses find attractive, it’s only a matter of time be…

They are not getting rid of Sora because people won't want AI videos lol. They're getting rid of Sora because they're so behind in this realm. AI videos online are mostly made with Chinese models, and the situation has been like this for more than one year.

The percentage of AI videos over the internet will certainly not decrease after Sora is gone.

The question is when will Chinese coding models have their Seedance moment and squeeze Opus/Codex out of market. It weirdly feels impossible and inevitable at the same time.

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#382
post #321

As someone who generally liked the products that OpenAI puts out, I think Sora was their first product that I really didn't like. I liked GPT primarily because I felt like it respected me: I never felt like it was trying to distract me from my work or get me to waste time doomscrolling. It's primary value proposition to keep me using it wasn't to trick me with addictive content, but to get me high quality answers as…

For me, Sora changed the way I viewed Sam Altman as a person.

I really thought he wasn't like the previous generations of tech leaders - as you mentioned OpenAI (with him in charge) seemed to be genuine about making a product that could improve people's lives.

He'd go on podcasts and quite convincingly talk about how ChatGPT could prevent real world harm like suicide, and possibly even contribute to helping disease too.

Then they drop this and it just doesn't gel. So much of what they've done since has just doubled down on the Zuck-esque scumminess and greed too.

Part of me still sees Dario as genuine in the way that Sama seemed back in 2024, but I'm sure once he has enough investor pressure he'll cave the same way too.

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also curious if Sora has been used by Iran to generate those Lego propaganda videos critical of the President. Given how close Sam Altman is with the current administration, I wouldn't be surprised if Sora is now reserved for U.S. government propaganda only. Might be why the latest Iran propaganda video could be created in PowerPoint: https://bsky.app/profile/rachelbitecofer.bsky.social/post/3m...

I don't think so. There are tons of self hosted models for video (they are smaller and easier to run). Most people serious about this stuff usually have their own pipelines.

Since you seem to be better informed, I'm also interested in what self hosted models for video you recommend for creating my own Lego movie clips now that Sora is no longer an option for a paid service. There's tons, right?

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like taking in GenAI content, even if it makes me laugh, probably does something bad to my brain. It looks like real life, but the physics is just wrong in ways that range from obvious to very subtle. I don’t want to feed my brain videos of things that look photorealistic but do not depict reality, that just seems foolish somehow. Like, imagine if you watched a bunch of GenAI videos of cars sliding on ice from…

Do you feel the same about special effects in professionally produced media?

Are there energy consumption differences between CGI and AI?

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kinda surprised about how hard GenAI fell on its face in the arts (including SD and other video generators). It seemed so promising, when SD came out and it turned out the model fit on people's GPUs. People started making LoRAs, hyperparameter tunes, mixing models, training models for representing characters, ComfyUI and Controlnet came out yada yada. Then it became synonymous with slop, lowest common denominator…

You’re most likely consuming a large quantity of genai art without even knowing it.

Sure, and I'm also consuming a gigantic quantity of GenAI art while knowing it, completely against my will. Which like OP has soured my overall perception of it.

The existence of inoffensive use cases doesn't invalidate anything OP is saying, that's just a natural human reaction to overexposure of a technology.

In the span of less than 2 years, pretty much everywhere I look has been inundated with zero-effort spam, manipulated imagery, etc that has had a net-negative impact on my life. Even if it may also be helpful for a small business making a flyer or whatever without actively making my life worse, that doesn't really move the needle on my overall attitude.

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#386

Man I find the HN crowd so cross and fickle sometimes. I think it’s just because when companies get bad rep it affects how people view the products? Im autistic and tend to focus on the tech SORA ( whatever that means) was one of the most astounding demos I’ve probably ever seen ( ChatGPT was more gradual ). The shock and awe of rendered AI video blew my mind. Yes months later everyone can do it and is bored by it an…

Interesting to hear your perspective. There was no shock and awe to me, ChatGPT changed what I thought was possible with computers, and everything else as far as photorealistic generation and then video just seemed inevitable. I decided to abstain from watching any video I know is AI, but of course now it’s mixed in with television and advertisements. I’ve started data hoarding old TV shows thinking it will be nice to have something to watch when the internet goes down.

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#387

Good riddence to bad trash. To me, this idea represents the absolute worst of the AI wave (out of a lot to choose from): a corporate controlled endless stream of the feelies to keep people plugged in and scrolling for nobody’s benefit except those in control of the output. If “entertainment” can be produced algorithmically to a volume and level of quality that the masses find attractive, it’s only a matter of time be…

relax dude

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#388

The thing that didn't make sense with this app: who would ever want to scroll only AI generated videos over a combined feed? In practice people would just generate the videos with the app then post them on regular social media in which case OAI would not get the ad revenue for that Its the age-old "your product is just a subset of another product"

There's only one highly monetizable use for AI video generation but unfortunately it's fake revenge porn. You'll know the whole thing is about to collapse when the frontier models break that glass (as OpenAI is already preparing to do with sexting).

There are others! They're just all horrible and generally revolve around weaponized misinformation - personalized scams, for instance.

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#389
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re just replaying the CGI debate from the 2010s. It was popular to hate on CGI because it was obvious and bad and low quality and practical effects were better because of… We learned two things from this debate: 1. What most people hated was actually just “bad CGI”. Good CGI went entirely unnoticed. 2. A generation of people were raised with CGI present in almost every form of professional media (i.e. not social m…

But CGI in most big blockbusters is bad, and people still complain about it.

I’m curious if you’d still feel this way after watching this video series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ttG90raCNo

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel the same about special effects in professionally produced media?

I was thinking about this while typing. I don’t really care about classically animated content; it’s generally not trying to be indistinguishable from real life and I don’t feel like my brain trains on it. But I think I do have similar feelings about special effects. A difference is that special effects tend to depict scenarios very outside of the envelope of normal experience, so probably not very damaging if my mod…

if it worked this way, we could get good at golf by watching TV, writing songs by listening to the radio, or doing math by watching 3b1b. but it doesn't - we don't learn that way, for better or worse.
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