Sora, OpenAI's video generation tool, unexpectedly shut down. How did Sora go from uprooting the entirety of Hollywood only to end up as an unprofitable beacon for AI slop, wonders Derek McArthur.

OpenAI, Sam Altman’s AI behemoth that gave birth to the widely popular ChatGPT, has abruptly shut down its video creation tool Sora.

For a minute there, Sora was a very real existential threat to the entire structure of the film and television industries. A Hollywood set would have become a weird quirk of the past. Sora could generate settings, actors, dialogue, and every single aspect of production, pretty much, and to an almost carbon copy degree. It was never perfect - look closely at any of its glossy promotional videos for long enough and that becomes obvious - but it was near enough to the finish line to raise major concerns across the industry.

OpenAI's Sora could kill commercial film – good riddance?

Even the gigantic Disney corporation backed the tool, with the company under former CEO Bob Iger investing $1 billion (£750 million) into OpenAI and allowing Sora to use characters from Marvel, Pixar, and other Disney-owned studios in its video generation. It exacerbated the persistent fears of creative works being used to train AI without the creator or owner’s permission, with the biggest player in the........

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