OpenAI has introduced ‘Sora Turbo’, which is its new and improved version of ‘Sora’.
Sora is a generative AI video generation tool introduced by the ChatGPT creator earlier this year.
According to OpenAI, Sora Turbo is “significantly faster” than its predecessor previewed in February. Now, it is being offered as a standalone software for ChatGPT Plus and Pro users.
OpenAI announced the release of Sora Turbo on LinkedIn: “Our holiday gift to you: Sora is here.
“Now you can generate entirely new videos from text, bring images to life, or extend, remix, or blend videos you already have.
“We’ve developed new interfaces to allow easier prompting, creative controls, and community sharing.
OpenAI continued: “We hope that this early version of Sora will help people explore new forms of creativity. We can’t wait to see what you create.”
Sora Subscriptions
Plus account holders will be able to utilise Sora at no additional cost. They will be able to generate up to 50 videos at 480p resolution or fewer videos with a higher resolution of 720p per month.
Pro plan holders can leverage 10 times more usage, greater resolutions, and longer video durations.
OpenAI revealed that it is creating different tailored pricing plans, which it will make available in early 2025.
Earlier this month, OpenAI launched a $200 ChatGPT Pro monthly plan to provide customers with the “best of” its models and tools.
OpenAI admits in a recent blog post that the technology isn’t perfect: “The version of Sora we are deploying has many limitations. It often generates unrealistic physics and struggles with complex actions over long durations.
“Although Sora Turbo is much faster than the February preview, we’re still working to make the technology affordable for everyone.”
Sora Safeguards
OpenAI has said it is making its video generation technology public now in order to “give society time to explore its possibilities and co-develop norms and safeguards” to make sure that it is used in a responsible way.
The implication being, as it says above, that it would otherwise have waited until it had a more polished product before releasing it.
If we take a look at the current generative AI video tech landscape, however, it seems likely that this is just spin.
First, the technology is not ‘new’ to society. There are a number of comparable solutions already available.
Second, it is taking this update live just days after one of its major rivals, Amazon, chose to debut its new Amazon Nova foundation models, which includes generating short videos using text prompts and images. This aligns with the usual closely packed timeframe for competitor releases.
One Amazon safeguarding solution has been to add watermarks to all of its content generation models.
Similarly, Sora videos will reportedly have watermarks by default, C2PA metadata and an internal search tool to help identify a video’s origin to provide greater transparency.
It is also planning to block abusive materials like sexual deepfakes. While it is improving its deepfake mitigation measures, users uploads will be limited at launch.
At the end of October, OpenAI announced the launch of ChatGPT Search, an AI-powered search engine set to compete with Google and Microsoft Bing.
