If you can write it, you can see it: Let's talk about Sora, the new AI tool

Although sight is one of the most deceptive senses we possess as humans, we tend to consider it the primary means of distinguishing the real from the imaginary. However, what would happen if we suddenly had to start doubting what our own eyes see?

By: Alan Luna

«Seeing is believing,» says the famous proverb, which posits that only through this sense can we be sure something is real and not a deception or figment of the imagination. However, perhaps it's time to reconsider this statement, as our environment is changing rapidly and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.

You've surely heard of OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence research and development company, founded in 2015 by prominent minds like Ilya Sutskever, Andrej Karpathy, Greg Brockman, and Trevor Blackwell, also backed by a board of directors that includes names like Sam Altman and Elon Musk. Originally established as a non-profit organization, its mission, they claim, is Ensure that artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity.

In 2022, OpenAI surprised the world by developing ChatGPT, a large-scale language model capable of providing detailed and seemingly intelligent responses, becoming a valuable ally for all those who need to put ideas into text.

Recently, OpenAI has taken another step forward with the launch of Sora, an artificial intelligence model capable of generating extremely realistic and imaginative moving images from text instructions.

The videos created with Sora that have started to go viral are mind-blowing: close-ups Reflective faces of people who don't exist, puppies Golden Retriever mammoths majestically roaming the screen as they would have when they dominated vast expanses of land, or individuals recording inside a train, their image reflected in the windows as we simultaneously distinguish the scene outside the carriage. The possibilities seem endless, but like any innovation of this magnitude, this tool also raises ethical dilemmas and concerns about its potential misuse.

Sora has the potential to revolutionize the audiovisual market, allowing brands to create spectacular videos to promote their products or helping educators tell incredible stories with unique visual support that captivates students for ideal learning. However, it could also be used to manipulate the truth and present alleged evidence with questionable motives.

We know that social networks are a channel where false events often spread, and without proper judgment, these videos could begin to fuel the post-truth times we live in and make it increasingly difficult to distinguish what is true from what is false.

Of course, Sora isn't perfect yet, but with the rapid advancement of technology, we'll likely soon see updates that correct its errors and produce videos that truly challenge our visual perception.

Artificial intelligence sparks very diverse and passionate opinions. Some see it as the beginning of the end, and there are certain aspects that could support these ideas. One example of this is a study published in January 2024 in which five AI programs from OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic were put in charge of fictional countries and acted much more aggressively than humans typically do in similar situations.

The study, conducted by researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Northeastern University, and the Hoover Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative, concluded that, given the results, the U.S. and other countries should exercise caution when integrating autonomous AI agents into decision-making.

Nevertheless, others consider it a powerful tool for positively transforming the way we work.

Recently, Fiverr, a platform connecting freelancers with clients worldwide, launched A clever campaign with the slogan «AI TOOK MY JOB,» a phrase that can be translated as «artificial intelligence took my job,» but which is complemented by a smaller text that says: «to the next level,» highlighting how artificial intelligence can enhance human work instead of replacing it.