TechCrunch, a technology media outlet, published a blog post yesterday (Nov. 26) reporting that a company called "Sora PR Puppets" organization as a protest against the OpenAI "deceptive behavior" and "artistic whitewashing".Access to Sora, an OpenAI video generation model, was leaked on the Hugging Face platform on Tuesday.
leak
The organization released a project on the Hugging Face platform on Tuesday that connects to OpenAI's not-yet-publicly-released Sora API.
Using its acquired certified tokens, the organization created a front-end interface that invites any user to generate a 10-second video of up to 1080P resolution by entering a short text description.
Some users have already shared and uploaded the generated videos on the X platform, all with OpenAI's signature watermark.
The front-end site stopped working at 12:01 p.m. EST on Nov. 26 (1:01 a.m. GMT on Nov. 27), presumably after OpenAI or Hugging Face revoked access, 1AI reported, citing the outlet.
Protest organized by "Sora PR Puppets"
The "Sora PR Puppets" group claims that OpenAI pressured Sora's early testers, including vulnerability testing and creative partners, to promote a positive image of Sora, but did not pay them to do so.
Pointing out that hundreds of artists provide OpenAI with unpaid bug testing, feedback, and experimental work that the $150 billion company is unwilling to pay for, the organization argues that Sora's Early Access program is more of a PR campaign than a true expression of creativity, and that no negative comments will be accepted.
OpenAI Response
An OpenAI spokesperson responded that Sora is still in "research preview" and that the company is trying to balance creativity with security measures for wider use. Hundreds of artists have participated in Sora's alpha testing to help prioritize new features and security measures, the spokesperson said.
OpenAI will continue to support these artists through grants, events and other programs.