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OpenAI suspended access to its unreleased but highly anticipated video generation tool <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2024/ai-video-sora-openai-flaws/" target=_blank>Sora</a> on Tuesday after a small group of artists leaked access to the tool in protest of the company’s treatment of creative professionals who test the tool with minimal compensation, acting as “PR puppets.”

OpenAI had granted hundreds of artists free, early access to Sora, to test the new artificial intelligence video generator. But a group of about 20 artists joined an open letter that argued<b> </b>the company had taken advantage of artists’ unpaid labor and was using them to burnish the company’s image.

To draw attention to OpenAI’s practices, the group posted an online tool allowing the public to use Sora to generate videos.

“Hundreds of artists provide unpaid labor through bug testing, feedback and experimental work for the program for a $150B valued company,” the group wrote in the fiery letter posted on Hugging Face, an open source repository for artificial intelligence projects.

The opportunities offered in return for helping the company, such as being selected to have their Sora-created films screened, offer “minimal compensation which pales in comparison to the substantial PR and marketing value OpenAI receives,” the artists added.

The tool was  accessible for only three hours, the artists said, after OpenAI quickly shut down the interface. OpenAI spokesperson Niko Felix said the company is temporarily pausing all user access to Sora while it looks into the situation.

“Hundreds of artists in our alpha have shaped Sora’s development, helping prioritize new features and safeguards,” Felix wrote in a statement from OpenAI. “Participation is voluntary, with no obligation to provide feedback or use the tool.”

Although Tuesday’s stunt was called a “leak” on social media, the artists did not have access to OpenAI’s code or proprietary information. They created a public webpage that allowed anyone to make use of the Sora access OpenAI had provided to the artists for their private use and testing.

An OpenAI spokesperson said only two artists named on the open letter protesting its practices were among those who had been given early access to Sora. One artist who had access, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation, told The Post that more than two artists granted access to Sora had backed the protest but that “not all authors with access were able to sign it.”

The list of signatories on the open letter was updated to add, “other anonymous Sora testers.”

The group’s stunt was an unusual move in the AI industry, where feedback from early testers is tightly controlled by companies, and harsh criticism is rarely made public. Typically companies hand-select which outsiders receive early access to examine a system, in some cases requiring these users to sign<b> </b>nondisclosure agreements or obtain approval before publicly sharing any images, videos, or text responses generated by the system.

The process of using outside testing, sometimes called <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/04/hackers-competed-find-ai-harms-heres-what-they-found/" target=_blank>“red teaming,”</a> — a term borrowed from cybersecurity — has been widely adopted across the AI industry, prompting even U.S. government agencies <a href="https://x.com/HeidyKhlaaf/status/1859357466858791419" target=_blank>to follow a similar safety protocol</a>. But recently a growing contingent of AI security experts, and now artists, critique the approach as having a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/05/ai-research-letter-openai-meta-midjourney/" target=_blank>chilling effect</a> on independent research, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/21/lawmaker-held-an-ai-roundtable-with-scholars-most-had-industry-ties/" target=_blank>reducing transparency</a>, and preventing accountability for company practices.

“We are not against the use of AI technology as a tool for the arts (if we were, we probably wouldn’t have been invited to this program),” the group of artists wrote on Hugging Face.

OpenAI said <a href="https://openai.com/index/sora/" target=_blank>in May</a> that it was providing early access to Sora to “red teamers to assess critical areas for harms or risks” and “visual artists, designers, and filmmakers to gain feedback on how to advance the model to be most helpful for creative professionals.”

After OpenAI paused access to Sora, the artist group linked to a site encouraging anyone who shares their views to sign the open letter. It has received almost 100 signatures. The group behind the Hugging Face post declined to respond to questions.

Sora has attracted scrutiny before, after OpenAI’s former chief technology officer Mira Murati <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/09/25/openai-mira-murati-departure-leaves/" target=_blank>ducked questions</a> about whether the company had used videos from YouTube to train the system.

André Allen Anjos, a musician known as RAC who had been granted early access to Sora, told The Washington Post the group’s stance did not reflect the view of most artists in the early access program.

“If anything, everybody is excited about being involved. The team is led by artists and they’re doing it right,” he wrote, noting that program participants were under NDA so he did not have much more to share.

A previous version of this article incorrectly said that all of the approximately 20 artists who joined an open letter protesting OpenAI's policies had access to its tool, Sora. Only two of those named on the letter had access to the tool. The article has been corrected.

Columbia University, BA in English

New York University, MA in Journalism

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Nitasha Tiku is The Washington Post's tech culture reporter based in San Francisco.


Nitasha Tiku

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OpenAI stops Sora video model access after artists leak in protest

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FILE PHOTO: Illustration shows OpenAI logo

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