Sam Altman-led artificial intelligence (AI) firm OpenAI’s text-to-video generator named Sora was willfully leaked by artists yesterday in a protest. A group of artists was given early access to the model for the beta testing phase and to gather feedback on the possible harms, risks, and improvements, if any. Provoked by the thought that OpenAI was misusing artists as unpaid R&D, free bug testers, PR puppets, and validation tokens, few of them uploaded the open access link on the Hugging Face platform. OpenAI was quick to respond and shut down the early access to all artists.
Here’s Why Artists Are Upset with OpenAI
The open link connected to the application programming interface for OpenAI’s Sora was used by several others to generate videos during the brief period. The protesters even published an open letter on the platform accusing the AI start-up of using professional artists as testers for their experimental work and for “artwashing.” The artists said that they are not against the use of AI tools for generating art but are upset with how OpenAI has rolled out the model and is using them ahead of the public release.
OpenAI’s testing model was released to a chosen few visual artists, designers, and filmmakers earlier this year. Artists are complaining that they were not rewarded appropriately for testing the model. Sam Altman and his team have been cozying up to Hollywood executives to display Sora as a friendlier tool rather than a threat to the community.
OpenAI did mention that the testing and feedback on Sora were voluntary. Plus, artists were disallowed from sharing access and confidential information about the model with others, while it was still in the research phase. OpenAI claims that Sora is capable of creating short, high-quality videos, with temporal consistency, all with the input of appropriate text.
The debate between creativity and ethics has been ongoing with the advent and use of AI models in every industry. Writers and artists are particularly stifled by this innovation. The safety and dependability of these AI models will always remain in question. Microsoft-backed ($MSFT) OpenAI is one of the frontrunners in the generative AI world and continues to create advanced models with the help of troves of data it has access to. OpenAI recently closed a funding round, valuing the AI startup at a massive $150 billion.
Is Microsoft Stock a Buy Now?
Analysts remain highly optimistic about Microsoft stock’s trajectory, thanks to AI-led tailwinds. On TipRanks, MSFT stock commands a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 26 Buys versus three Hold ratings. Also, the average Microsoft price target of $496.92 implies 16.1% upside potential from current levels. Year-to-date, MSFT shares have gained 14.7%.
