OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is launching its video creation tool called Sora to let anyone make custom AI-generated videos.

Some in the tech world, like YouTuber Marques Brownlee, have already had early access to the tool, and Brownlee called it “horrifying and inspiring at the same time.” In a video clip he shared on social media, you can see that the tool had no problem making realistic-looking footage at first glance. Under close scrutiny, you can tell that these are AI images, but since they look so real, I expect there to be a lot of confused people online from now on.

The company teased Sora in February of 2024 but it was kept mostly behind closed doors, with only select partners being allowed to use it. Now that it’s out, anyone with a ChatGPT Plus subscription ($20 per month) can utilize it to make 50 videos per month. These videos will be 480p. However, you can upgrade them to 720p, but it will reduce the amount of videos you can make. The videos in this tier last for five seconds and will be watermarked with a ChatGPT logo.

If you want it to be more powerful, you need to pay for the exorbitantly expensive ChatGPT Pro subscription of $200 per month. This allows you to make 500 videos that can go up to 1080p and will last 20 seconds. These will also lose the watermark.

To start, you can use text prompts to make AI videos, but by using the tool’s ‘Remix’ button, you can also upload photos and generate a video from that. You can also use the ‘Storyboard’ feature to string together multiple clips into a longer video.

If you head over to Sora.com, you can look at a selection of videos created by the AI tool. Some are meant to mimic real life, while others are abstract creations. While this is undoubtedly cool, there are concerns that it will have repercussions by allowing people to make realistic-looking fake news. It may also put digital video artists out of work. On top of that, it’s also quite strange to watch a video that’s not only fake, but also looks strange. Even earlier today, Kevin O’Leary launched a new data centre initiative in Alberta, and its promotional video appeared to be AI-generated and kind of offputting with how weird it was.

There is also the aspect that we don’t know where the source material for these videos is coming from. In the MKBHD video, he even asks Sora to generate a tech review and on the desk of the fake reviewer is a very real fake plant that Marques frequently uses in his videos. It could be a coincidence, but it feels like the tool is using videos scraped from YouTube to generate its fake videos, which feels a little icky to me.

If you have a ChatGPT account, you should be able to make videos today, but Ars Technica is reporting that some users are unable to use the tool since there are large numbers of signups pushing heavy traffic to the site and causing it to slow down.

An OpenAI blog post states that a small number of users will be able to bypass the tool’s limitation on generating videos based on real people. The post says it’s only letting select users test this aspect of the tool, and it will roll out the option to more users once it has fine-tuned its approach to safety.

Source: MKBHD, Sora, Ars Technica, OpenAI