New tech wizardry: OpenAI launched Sora, a new AI tool that transforms voice commands into uncannily realistic movie clips last week, catching the tech and media industries slightly off guard, Axios reports. Although similar technologies are out there — including ImagenVideo, Phenaki, and Lumiere, among others — OpenAI’s iteration cranks things up a notch by using a few sentences from a user and the software magically creates a convincing hyperrealistic, Hollywood-quality minute-long video clip (runtime: 10:23).
How does Sora do it? According to OpenAI, they’re teaching the model to comprehend and simulate the dynamic physical world, teaching it the ABCs of motion (as a growing infant would be experiencing it), movement, gravity, time, cause, and effect. As a result, it will learn how things maneuver, walk, and fall to execute human and objects’ complex movements. This coincides with OpenAI’s objective of training the tech about the real world.
Just as with most AI breakthroughs, there are some concerns, including how Sora will generate its content. Industry watchers have flagged risks of the technology stealing ideas or spreading wrong information, which is why OpenAI has opened Sora to only creatives in the field in a trial and error phase to develop the correct understanding on how to generate visuals. Its website indicates that they are working with “red teamers”: A team brought together for their expertise to battle “misinformation, hateful content, and bias” through their experimentation with the software.
What about the movie industry? Sora could have the potential to upend how the movie industry approaches special effects, offering significant shortcuts, and potentially reshaping the very foundation of Tinseltown. It also questions the value of our spark of artistic creation, the role of human performers and storytellers on screen, and what audiences will want to see down the line, Axios says.
Reactions are split: While some, like AI creator and ex-Googler Bilawal Sidhu, think the new tech is the cat’s whiskers, others, such as filmmaker Justine Bateman, view the software as “AI garbage” that relies on stolen work.
Women may be able to reap greater benefits with less exercise compared to men, suggests a recent study on adults in the US. Men who dedicated around five hours weekly to moderate to vigorous exercise cut their mortality rate by 18% in comparison to their sofa-glued counterparts. Meanwhile, women achieved the same health benefits with just 2.5 hours of comparable exercise per week, the study showed.
There are some limitations to this study. The data on physical activity from the 400k US adult participants was self-reported, and the data was observational without taking into account other lifestyle aspects such as smoking and eating habits, among others. Presently, it isn’t clear why women seem to have a leg up, but the main message is the importance of regular exercise to reduce cardiovascular mortality, CNBC quotes a cardiologist as saying.