Sora Launch

2024

Date: 15 February 2024 · Place: OpenAI, San Francisco · Figures: Bill Peebles, Sora research lead · Tim Brooks, Sora research lead · OpenAI · Tags: AI, Video, Launch 01. Tokyo Street, Two Mammoths OpenAI announces Sora on 15 February 2024 with a gallery of one-minute videos: a woman walking through neon Tokyo, woolly mammoths kicking up snow, a paper plane swooping through jungle canopy. The clips are not perfect but they are an order of magnitude beyond anything ModelScope or Runway has shipped. Sora is research-preview only, not publicly available. Will Smith eating spaghetti benchmarks circulate within an hour comparing the 2023 cursed-pasta clip to a clean Sora-quality version of the same prompt. 02. The Video Substrate Arrives Sora's announcement compresses the timeline for synthetic video memes. By the time public access ships in late 2024 the format is already culturally settled. Will Smith spaghetti benchmark stops being a meme because the model passes the test. Sora is the substrate for the next era of synthetic image memes that supersede photorealism into pure brainrot. Sources • OpenAI, Sora announcement and technical report (15 February 2024) • The Verge, 'OpenAI's Sora Generates Photorealistic Videos' (15 February 2024) • Bill Peebles and Tim Brooks, Sora gallery posts (Twitter, 15 February 2024)