The Walt Disney Company announced on Thursday its plans to invest $1 billion in OpenAI, a move that signifies a strong collaboration between the entertainment giant and the artificial intelligence sector. This massive investment clears OpenAI’s path to use Disney’s beloved copyrighted characters. Now, for one, they can see their favorites from other franchises like “Star Wars” and Marvel in its AI short-form video generator, Sora.
Launched in early September, Sora offers an AI platform that generates short videos of up to a minute in length from user-provided prompts. This innovative platform is akin to OpenAI’s other popular products, ChatGPT, which generates written responses, and DALL-E, which creates images. The partnership does much more than increase Sora’s content library — it further opens the world of storytelling through generative AI.
In mitigation, OpenAI has watermarked each video produced by Sora. We believe this will help viewers identify at a glance when content is generated by AI. Disney presented some demo videos in its unveiling. The videos included creative scenes, such as a man holding up a lightsaber and a surfer surfing on a wave with Stitch from “Lilo & Stitch”.
This partnership is the culmination of a shared commitment to both companies toward the responsible use of AI. Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, noted just how important this partnership is when he said,
“The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence marks an important moment for our industry, and through this collaboration with OpenAI we will thoughtfully and responsibly extend the reach of our storytelling through generative AI, while respecting and protecting creators and their works.”
Here’s what Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, said about the deal. He pushed further, stressing the importance of AI companies working closely with artistic leaders from the outset. He remarked,
“This agreement shows how AI companies and creative leaders can work together responsibly to promote innovation that benefits society, respect the importance of creativity, and help works reach vast new audiences.”
Through this new connection, OpenAI will make use of Disney’s large trove of famous characters for its users. With Sora, both companies hope to increase user engagement and expand their creative flexibility by incorporating these characters into Sora.
