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Why Is OpenAI Dropping Video? To Focus On What Really Matters.
That AI skeptics would jump on the end of Sora as a sign of AI failure is not a surprise. (Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images)
If you think the shutdown of OpenAI’s Sora app is a sign of AI failure, you’re not prepared for what’s coming.
By Tyler Cowen
03.26.26 — Tech and Business
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OpenAI’s Sora video generation tool was hailed as a breakthrough when it was introduced in 2024. Journalists called it “jaw-dropping,” especially in its later versions. Disney signed a multiyear deal with OpenAI for Sora to use its characters.

But on Tuesday, OpenAI canceled Sora. One view is that this is evidence of AI getting overhyped, and OpenAI is retreating from an area in which it had failed to find success and fallen behind competitors like Google and ByteDance. It’s being trotted out as an example of how AI is not living up to its promise.

I have a different view.

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Tyler Cowen
Tyler Cowen is Holbert L. Harris Professor of Economics at George Mason University and also Faculty Director of the Mercatus Center. He received his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1987. His book The Great Stagnation: How America Ate the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better was a New York Times best-seller. He was named in an Economist poll as one of the most influential economists of the last decade and Bloomberg Businessweek dubbed him "America's Hottest Economist." Foreign Policy magazine named him as one of its "Top 100 Global Thinkers" of 2011. He co-writes a blog at www.MarginalRevolution.com, hosts a podcast Conversations with Tyler, and is co-founder of an online economics education project, MRU.org. He is also director of the philanthropic project Emergent Ventures.
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Artificial Intelligence
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