OpenAI recently published a music video for the song World weight by August Kamp created entirely by their text-to-video engine, Sora. You can view the whole thing on the website the company’s official YouTube channel and it’s pretty trippy to say the least. World weight consists of a series of short clips in a wide 8:3 aspect ratio with blurred shots of various environments.
You see a cloudy day on the beach, a shrine in the middle of a forest and what appears to be bits of alien technology. The ambient track in combination with the images results in a unique ethereal experience. It’s half pleasant and half disturbing.
It is unknown which text prompts were used on Sora; Kamp has not shared that information. But she did explain the inspiration behind it in the description. She says that every time she made the track, she imagined what a video represented World weight would look like. However, she lacked a way to share her thoughts. Thanks to Sora, this is no longer an issue, as the footage shows what she always envisioned. It’s “what the song always ‘looked like'” from her perspective.
Embracing Sora
If you pay close attention throughout the duration, you will notice hallucinations. Leaves turn into fish, bushes appear out of nowhere and flowers have cameras instead of petals. But the ethereal nature of the music makes it all fit together. Nothing feels out of place or nightmare-inducing. If anything, the video embraces the nightmares.
We should mention that August Kamp is not the only one using Sora for content creation. Media production company Shy Kids recently published a short film on YouTube called ‘Air Head’, which was also created on the AI engine. It plays like a movie trailer about a man with a balloon for a head.
Analysis: lofty goals
It’s hard to say if Sora will see widespread adoption based on this content. Granted, things are in the early stages, but ready or not, that hasn’t stopped OpenAI pitching its technology to major Hollywood studios. Studio executives are apparently excited about the prospects of AI saving time and money on production.
August Kamp himself is in favor of the technology that states: “Being able to intuitively build and repeat cinematic images has categorically opened up new artistic avenues for me.” She looks forward to seeing “what other forms of storytelling” will emerge as artificial intelligence continues to grow.
In our opinion, tools like Sora will most likely enjoy niche adoption among independent creators. Both Kamp and Shy Kids seem to understand what the generative AI can and cannot do. They embrace the strangeness and use it in their stories to great effect. Sora may be good at bringing strange images to life, but in terms of creating ‘normal-looking content’ that remains to be seen.
People still talk about how weird or nightmare-inducing content created by generative AI is. Unless OpenAI can overcome this hurdle, Sora may not expand much beyond niche use.
It is still unknown when Sora will be made publicly available. OpenAI is holding off on a launch, citing possible interference in global elections as one of the reasons. Although there are plans to release the AI in late 2024.
If you’re looking for other platforms, check out Ny Breaking’s list of the best AI creators for 2024.