OpenAI's Sora App Adds Character Cameos and Video Stitching Tools

[MacRumors]

OpenAI has rolled out another update to its Sora AI video app, one that builds on its existing video generation features with new tools designed to help users create longer, more narrative-driven content.

For anyone unfamiliar with the name, Sora is an invite-only AI video app and social network. It lets you create realistic, cinematic, and anime-style AI videos of yourself, friends, and other people, complete with synchronized speech and sound effects.

The headline feature in the latest update is character cameos, which expands on Sora's ability to create AI videos of real people. Users can now create reusable characters from any video upload – whether from their camera roll or existing Sora-generated content – and tag them in future video generations.

Once created, each character gets its own display name and handle, along with customizable permissions. Users can keep characters private, share them with mutual followers, or make them available to everyone on the platform. OpenAI is launching the feature with a selection of starter characters, including Halloween-themed options like Frankenstein, Dracula, Witch, and Ghost.

The update also introduces video stitching, allowing users to select multiple clips from their drafts and merge them into a single sequence. There's also a new community leaderboards feature that showcases the most remixed videos and most frequently used characters and cameos.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1983661036533379486

OpenAI has temporarily relaxed Sora's invitation requirements to coincide with the update, allowing users in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Korea to sign up without an invite code for a limited time. The app is now also available in Thailand, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

The character cameo feature has already landed OpenAI in hot water – celebrity video platform Cameo filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against OpenAI just days before the update launched, challenging the company's use of "cameo" in Sora's features.

The Sora app debuted late last month and crossed one million downloads faster than ChatGPT did, despite being invite-only and available in just two countries at launch.

Article Link: OpenAI's Sora App Adds Character Cameos and Video Stitching Tools

 

[turbineseaplane]

OpenAI is an unethical, immoral, dumpster fire of a company built on theft.

Don't support them.

 

[MVMNT]

Once created, each character gets its own display name and handle.

Someone is going to find a workaround to use humans, and then what? Bagging and tagging everyone's likeness without their consent or means to notify them when they've had a username created.

Meanwhile we're taking up all the good usernames for "characters"

 

[JMalone]

OpenAI is an unethical, immoral, dumpster fire of a company built on theft.

Don't support them.

You can make the most deranged videos and memes of Sam Altman and Zucks and see if they keep liking the technology.

 

[Happy_John]

But why?

It's a serious question. the slop being produced simply is not consistent or sensical enough to replace traditional (i.e. human-made) content.

What is the use case for this except for generating money from a gimmick? Surely this is a ridiculous waste of compute for essentially the same level of slop as Snapchat filter videos?

At this point hundreds of billions of dollars of investment have been pumped into AI, and this is what investors think will give them an acceptable RoI?

 

[JMalone]

But why?

The business model works like this:

1. They make you buy endless tokens like in a casino full of addicted gamblers.
2. But in this case the house that wins is the electricity and GPU companies.
3. Both of whom the AI company employees are either invested in or receive investment from.

It’s just a casino system. It looks like media and entertainment but it’s about squeezing money out of you and the stock market. Just like Vegas.

Casinos also sold customer data to spy agencies.

 

[Selena Agna]

It's like technology companies think we'll enjoy the slop if they just push it into our faces all day every day.

 

[Happy_John]

The business model works like this:

1. They make you buy endless tokens like in a casino full of addicted gamblers.
2. But in this case the house that wins is the electricity and GPU companies.
3. Both of whom the AI company employees are either invested in or receive investment from.

It’s just a casino system. It looks like media and entertainment but it’s about squeezing money out of you and the stock market. Just like Vegas.

Casinos also sold customer data to spy agencies.

Yes, but it can't be sustainable. There's never going to be an RoI appropriate to justify the investment, even for the casino owners.

 

[turbineseaplane]

It's like technology companies think we'll enjoy the slop if they just push it into our faces all day every day.

Can put poop on my plate at every meal, forever ... I'm never going to start eating it.

 

[everlast3434]

This is definitely worth all of the devastating impacts that AI energy has on the environment, or do we not care about that anymore? If not, give me back my plastic straws!

 

[turbineseaplane]

This is definitely worth all of the devastating impacts that AI energy has on the environment, or do we not care about that anymore? If not, give me back my plastic straws!

Plastic straws are really bad on multiple fronts, all other environmental concerns and issues aside.

Source

 

[citysnaps]

In a word, fascinating.

 

[igauravarora]

Man, what's even real anymore..

 

[jimbobb24]

For contrast to the general opinion....Sora is great. It's on the level of TikTok as most of it is nonsense but it demonstrates some real cleverness and creativity from the users.

Sora has two amazing innovations completely separate from the incredible advances in AI video creation. The first is the cameo. You can make a video of you and Shaq hanging out with JFK talking about conspiracy theories and it looks very real. Swipe up and down for endless examples. The second is the remix. When someone has a clever idea someone else can remix the video with minor changes. For example someone makes a video of Audry Hepburn in a theatre enjoying a specific movie like Breakfast at Tiffanies. Than someone else can change the movie to Saw or whatever. This is swiping right.

From a creation standpoint it's a lot of fun. From a consumption standpoint it's also a riot seeing the way remixes evolve.

It's not high art...it's mild entertainment like youtube shorts or TikTok but with high end video creation democratized.

Other complaints about AI stealing information, or the high electricity demands and water demands I just attribute to ongoing ignorance and hysteria and a general luddite impulse.

 

[ProbablyDylan]

Don't mind me, just grabbing my tinfoil hat.

This kind of generative AI will become a weapon of systematic doubt. By flooding the world with synthetic images and videos, the powers that be won't need to suppress the truth; they'll simply train us to dismiss it.

Every atrocity, every crime, every abuse can be waved away with "that's probably AI." We'll be conditioned to distrust our own eyes, to second-guess every piece of evidence, until we believe nothing and accept everything.

The party won't tell us to reject the evidence of our eyes and ears. We'll do it ourselves.

 

[turbineseaplane]

It's not high art...it's mild entertainment like youtube shorts or TikTok but with high end video creation democratized.

It's definitely not high art, I agree.
It's ecological resource waste combined with IP theft.

What happened to all the people defending Apple and their desire for compensation for their IP?

 

[clg82]

This is definitely worth all of the devastating impacts that AI energy has on the environment, or do we not care about that anymore? If not, give me back my plastic straws!

You must be in Cali, cause the rest of the US has plastic straws...

 

[cocky jeremy]

You can make some really funny stuff, but it's really not consistent. Sometimes it will make what you describe, other times it's almost impossible to get it to be accurate. Seems really random too.

 

[everlast3434]

You must be in Cali, cause the rest of the US has plastic straws...

Ha! Nope Canada. We also have wooden takeout forks and knives...

 

[everlast3434]

Plastic straws are really bad on multiple fronts, all other environmental concerns and issues aside.

View attachment 2574070


Source

Makes sense. Paper is too.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Makes sense. Paper is too.

Sounds like metal reusable straws we bring with us are the only way out!

What's your source link on that screenshot?

Always good to share that so we can all learn together.

✌️

 

[swm]

Yes, but it can't be sustainable. There's never going to be an RoI appropriate to justify the investment, even for the casino owners.

I know about a certain casino owner who somehow managed to bankrupt one in Atlantic city...

 

[swm]

OpenAI is an unethical, immoral, dumpster fire of a company built on theft.

Don't support them.

here's a plan. OpenAI doesn't have any kind of functional monetisation on their sora platform. which means they're unable to get any revenue from it directly. but it has its costs, someone calculated that the operational costs behind every stupid slop generation is about $5.
so if people keep registering new accounts and use it to create yet another useless slop, it will cost Altman another $5. so people shall just keep doing this over and over until bankruptcy.
stock valuation is one thing (we all know this is a massive bubble, just like Nvidia's) but operational costs and cash flow is something different. unless Altman wants to do funding round after funding round in an endless loop, they have to either stop this PoC or figure out a way to make money from it. or keep burning money at a high rate.

 

[DoubleU]

Still not available in any country or region that has a modicum of personal privacy legislation... keep uploading those videos of yourself...

 

[cardfan]

It's like technology companies think we'll enjoy the slop if they just push it into our faces all day every day.

Why not? The media does it. Politicians do it. Content providers do it. And millions of stupid people eat the slop over and over..lol This app is #1 or 2 in the app store. Millions of stupid people download it. This is the average person. Too dumb to use a map. So stupid they can't even think and have to be told what to think. Of course they'll love this ai slop.