OpenAI’s Merry Shipmas

This initiative, confirmed by CEO Sam Altman at The New York Times’ DealBook conference, aims to showcase daily innovations, with highlights including the anticipated release of Sora, a text-to-video AI tool, and a new reasoning model.

Sora, designed to generate videos from textual prompts, has been in development throughout 2024. Its progress has involved collaboration with artists through an invite-only research preview, allowing them to test and provide feedback on the tool. However, this process has sparked controversy, as some artists accused OpenAI of exploiting their labor for unpaid research and development, leading to a protest where access to Sora was leaked.

In the competitive landscape of AI-generated video, Google’s recent introduction of its model, Veo, adds pressure. Veo, now available in private preview through Google’s Vertex AI platform, was unveiled just ahead of Sora’s release, intensifying the race in this technological frontier.

The “12 Days of OpenAI” event is expected to feature daily livestreams, each presenting new developments. Teasers from OpenAI employees suggest a festive theme, with hints at features like a Santa-inspired voice for ChatGPT, as indicated by code changes spotted by users.

The first announcement today is that OpenAI o1 is now out of preview in ChatGPT. What’s changed since the preview? A faster, more powerful reasoning model that’s better at coding, math & writing, according to OpenAI.