By Jack Salaki
Correspondent
I was scrolling on Instagram when I noticed a strange watermark: Sora. The video that appeared was of a golden lab retriever being pulled over by the police. Yes, you read that correctly — a dog was driving a car. After being questioned, the retriever quickly drove away.
This video was created by Sora, an artificial intelligence video generation app created by OpenAI — the creator of ChatGPT. The app first launched on the app store on Sept. 30 and quickly rose to the top of the charts. As of right now, we don't have any information on how many active users are on the platform. It is an invite-only app, but codes are reportedly being sold.
Sora is quite simple. Well, it's simple for the user at least. The user provides the app with a text prompt describing the scene that they want generated. They can also upload an image or video to remix, allowing the AI to add its own touch. From there, Sora uses its algorithm to rebuild your text prompt into a real video. Currently, there are rumors of a 30-video creation limit over 24 hours. However, OpenAI doesn't provide any information about limits on its website.
When I first heard all of this information, I was far from surprised. I had suspected that something like this would arrive sooner rather than later. However, as AI has shown us, things rarely go according to schedule.
Although many users are thrilled by creating ridiculous scenarios with this app, its consequences have yet to be felt. In recent years, both the Writers Guild of America and the Actors Guild have gone on strike due to fears of AI taking their jobs. These fears are quickly becoming a reality as mass AI content swamps the internet.
For some, AI-generated videos might not seem like a big deal. After all, they create content that looks and sounds just like human content. What is so bad about that?
But what these questions fail to account for is what AI is doing to human creativity. For as long as humans have been alive, we have been creating. Whether it's paintings on caves, writing dense books about human existence or making films, humans have been creating for a very long time.
More importantly, countless people have poured their souls into their work. Whether it's paintings, books, movies, or even music, human creation is a reflection of the human experience. It reflects back to us our greatest joys, sorrows, hopes and fears. Human creation takes time.
Now, AI doesn't have to take that time. It doesn't have to "pour effort" into its work. A human can tell it what to create and it's done. This cheapens the art of creation, and creation simply loses its meaning when we make things this way.
Additionally, it should be said that AI isn't creating anything. Everything that Sora makes is based on what someone else has already created. It is literally the textbook definition of plagiarism. The more we engage with this AI content and rely on it for our entertainment, the more we are essentially saying that we don't need anything new. Humans have said everything they can say. Let's let AI say the rest for us.
Unfortunately, AI is here to stay. There is nothing that I or anyone else can do to stop that. But what we can do is choose. Rather than spending time on this AI-generated content, we can spend time on works of art that are created by actual human beings. By doing this, we can at least slow down the death of human creativity.
