Artists Leak OpenAI's Sora Tool Amid Unpaid Labor Claims

According to Cointelegraph, a group of artists and early testers leaked OpenAI's unreleased text-to-video tool, Sora, in protest over claims of unpaid research and development. The group, operating under the username 'PR-Puppets,' published a front-end version of Sora on the AI developer platform HuggingFace on November 26. This allowed public access to the tool, but OpenAI reportedly intervened to shut it down shortly after. The artists and beta testers allege they were exploited by OpenAI, which is valued at $157 billion, during the development of Sora. They claim they were promised roles as early testers, red teamers, and creative partners but were instead used for 'art washing' to promote Sora as a beneficial tool for artists. In an open letter accompanying the leak, the group stated that 'hundreds of artists' contributed unpaid labor through bug testing, feedback, and experimental work, only to be excluded from any compensation or recognition. The leaked version of Sora was available online for several hours, during which users shared examples of videos generated by the tool on social media platform X. Some users noted the tool's impressive ability to handle complex animations, such as arms and legs. The leaked version appears to be a faster 'turbo' variant, with code suggesting future customization and style controls for video generation. Sora was initially unveiled by OpenAI on February 16, showcasing its capability to generate hyper-realistic video content from simple prompts. A report from The Information on February 17 indicated that OpenAI had trained Sora using 'hundreds of millions of hours' of video clips to enhance the quality and variety of its AI-generated footage. OpenAI has not yet responded to requests for comment regarding the leak and the artists' claims.