Goodbye to Sora • Hacker News Board

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#841

Post by toraway » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 10:13 PM UTC

johnfn wrote: post #809

ionwake wrote: post #343

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…

I think Sora is an excellent way to see how people's beliefs clash with reality. Even in this post, I see people likening Sora to unveiling "a weapon", it filling them with "bland dread", or comparing it to creating "killing robots". But now that Sora is being shut down, what impact did Sora actually have on society, other than getting a couple of people to waste their time making some funny meme videos? Did any of t…

Sora was one of the earliest demos of a "wow okay that is good enough to be mistaken for real" GenAI model, which is what that comment was referencing with the "weapon" reference (the tech behind it not just Sora™ Videos).

Sure, by the time they productized it, Sora was no longer SOTA thanks to the AI arms race. And ultimately positioned as a TikTok for Slop with an annoying watermark so didn't take the world by storm on its own.

But since it was unveiled GenAI videos as a whole have become commonplace everywhere else on the internet, with plenty of negative impact already in terms of spam or manipulation, and we're barely in year 2 so far.

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#842

Post by chrysoprace » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 10:17 PM UTC

Hopefully this means less misinformation and slop on social media, but maybe that's just wishful thinking.

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#843

Post by Gooblebrai » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 10:27 PM UTC

asim wrote: post #545

Sometimes I think my opinion means nothing on these topics, especially when it's going to get buried in a thread of 500 plus comments. But I think you finally see a little bit of a flaw in the strategy or just a little bit of insight into what was desperation for relevance and to try to very quickly attain what other companies have attained but essentially what they're seeing is this gradual reduction in ambition and…

> coding is the prime use case for this where you can make money

Which makes me wonder... what's the business model long-term of AI generated art places?

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#844

Post by Gooblebrai » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 10:32 PM UTC

sfn42 wrote: post #524

AussieWog93 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I haven't followed him much as I really don't care, but the one clip I've seen of him that really stands out to me (I've seen more but this is the one I remember) is one where he's talking to some guy who doubts the LLMs genius, and Sam says something like "what if ChatGPT solved quantum gravity, would you be convinced then?" To me, this just came off as pathetic. It hasn't solved anything and there's no reason to be…

> He's holding the guy verbally hostage just to manipulate dumb viewers.

Why? The other person can say "Yes". That doesn't mean ChatGPT has the capability to do it?

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#845

Post by aenis » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 10:34 PM UTC

andai wrote: post #808

ghurtado wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm gonna try to remember this comment for the next time someone brings up the boiling frog analogy. Which is usually back to back with the thought that in bygone times "the human mind used to be cleaner / healthier / smarter and it was slowly destroyed by modern living" There's not that much difference between our behavior and that of a chicken fixated on the chalk line in front of it.

In the 19th century, many authors lamented the frantic, unhealthy pace of modern life.

And boy, were they right.

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#846

Post by Gooblebrai » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 10:34 PM UTC

umich2025 wrote: post #399

makingstuffs wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think of them all Gemini has the most viable use case when Veo is paired with their advertising platform. It does genuinely open the door to a lot of cost saving for promo shots of products etc

Agreed. For reference, if sora 2 was able to generate me a Google ugc product video, it would cost me like $10 and I would get it within 30 minutes if including editing. Paying a ugc content creator would cost me $50-200 plus no control over final shots plus I gotta wait for them to respond. I have 30 products in my e-commerce store— these costs add up like crazy The other one is TV ads/cinamatic ads. For a 30 second…

I'm curious, would you be fine with the AI influencers showcasing your product?

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#847

Post by aenis » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 10:37 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #739

asim wrote: post #545

Sometimes I think my opinion means nothing on these topics, especially when it's going to get buried in a thread of 500 plus comments. But I think you finally see a little bit of a flaw in the strategy or just a little bit of insight into what was desperation for relevance and to try to very quickly attain what other companies have attained but essentially what they're seeing is this gradual reduction in ambition and…

"coding is the prime use case for this where you can make money" Is it? I have the impression GenAI deteriorates the internet both from a content and tech perspective. Bots that waste your time because they don't work well or because they are pushing an agenda, and low quality content that floods social media from people who want to make a quick buck. GitHub and AWS became increasingly unstable. X, Instagram, and Wha…

I am old enough to remember the outages of aws, gcp and azure which predate the gen ai thing. And of course the countless, endless, hopeless procession of bugs in just about anything else.

I am running it in a large mid cap company (~25bn revenue). For the first time we are releasing stuff which does not suck, and we are releasing it 5x faster than before. Its real for us, produces real, measureable economic value.

Now, how does anthropic or google make any money on those 250 p/m subs i have no idea.

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#848

Post by throwaway613746 » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 10:40 PM UTC

muzani wrote: post #511

yoz-y wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that due to the ease these can be made there is also really no reason to make this social. “Why would I look at somebody else’s creations when I can do mine.”

They're different impulses. Some want to consume. Others want to create. TikTok and social media is a strange mix of both, people posting response videos to everything. Personally, I've stopped subscribing to Spotify, YT music, etc because the slop from Suno is good enough to replace mainstream music or whatever lofi playlist. It's free, it's good enough, and it's not grating to hear after a few days of that favorite…

[dead]

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#849

Post by mitkebes » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 10:41 PM UTC

Gooblebrai wrote: post #843

asim wrote: post #545

Sometimes I think my opinion means nothing on these topics, especially when it's going to get buried in a thread of 500 plus comments. But I think you finally see a little bit of a flaw in the strategy or just a little bit of insight into what was desperation for relevance and to try to very quickly attain what other companies have attained but essentially what they're seeing is this gradual reduction in ambition and…

> coding is the prime use case for this where you can make money Which makes me wonder... what's the business model long-term of AI generated art places?

A growing business right now is using AI art for product images for Amazon/etc listings. There are lots of ComfyUI workflows for it, you put in a picture of the product, some photos of people, and it can spit out images of the people wearing it.

Many product images are currently done through photoshop/etc, but this is quicker and can look more realistic.

It may not accurately represent how the product will actually look when worn, but that's not the seller's primary concern.

Re: Goodbye to Sora

#850

Post by randycupertino » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 10:47 PM UTC

mlok wrote: post #824

Terretta wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a particularly misleading anecdote. In a sufficiently isolated population, you get the same effect from a sound-making greeting card, or a battery powered light and/or sound toy from a carnival. And for what it's worth, tomorrow they don't miss whatever “indistinguishable from magic” thing, so no harm done. // grew up near such areas

On TV, content changes all the time. It is "always new". In your examples, content is the same over and over. They would not be fascinating for too long because the novelty would wear off. Very different.

> On TV, content changes all the time. It is "always new".

Personally I think this also is what makes reddit so addictive as well. I want to read all the threads on the subreddits I enjoy... which is impossible, because there's always new interesting posts.