Since OpenAI released Sora — an image and video generator — in December 2024, social media feeds have flooded with AI-generated photos and videos ranging from amusing animals doing kung-fu to realistic videos spreading disinformation.
It’s easy to dismiss AI-generated content as “slop,” but it can have real, concrete effects. Not just on the viewer, but also the artists whose work trains models like Sora — and whose livelihoods may be replaced by it.
Almost 26% of the tasks carried out by professional designers and artists can be automated by generative AI, according to research by Goldman Sachs.
However, OpenAI recently announced that Sora will be shutting down in all forms on Sept. 24, with the web and app versions being discontinued on April 26.
Although OpenAI did not provide a concrete reason for terminating Sora, it appears the shutdown was largely driven by financial factors, according to The New York Times. OpenAI earned about $13 billion in revenue, but it expects to spend about $100 billion over the next four years.
Theo Hanson, a freshman health science major at Boston University with a minor in fine arts, said the shutdown came as a genuine surprise — but a welcome one.
“I’m shocked that they’re actually doing something about it,” Hanson said. “It’s just kind of unusual. I guess it’s great that they shut it down.”
Hanson said he never used Sora, citing distrust of the technology. But its presence was hard to ignore.
“I went into a coffee shop the other day and all the posters on the wall were so obviously AI,” Hanson said. “It’s just really tough to think that could have been a job for somebody, that could have been a passion project … that could have been their rent.”
Clyde Eberly — a freshman film and TV major at BU — said she similarly has never used Sora or any AI tool for creative work because of how “hollow” it feels.
“I don’t think AI can create meaningful art,” Eberly said. “Art is such a human experience … AI physically cannot replicate that, and it should not be replicating that.”
Beyond a distrust for the technology, Hanson and Eberly both cited job insecurity from artificially-generated art as a source of anxiety.
“I initially was an art major, but I went down to a minor. I think by the time I graduate, there really won’t be a lot of jobs for artists, especially with AI coming out.” Hanson said.
While Sora shutting down might be good for artists, Hanson said he worries about the various other platforms that artificially generate content.
“They might have taken down Sora, but there’ll always be the next thing that takes away jobs from artists,” Hanson said.
Eberly said when companies start using AI to cut their labor costs, they lose out on passionate people.
“We’re not telling original stories anymore … we already have an insane unemployment rate, and to now be [using] AI for creative things, it’s just a disgrace to the creative process” she said.
While many artists have reservations with AI’s presence in their industry, some feel there are potential upsides.
Shawn Tse, an economics and business major who practices photography as a hobby, believes that AI has potential as a tool to help beginners learn artforms like photography.
“AI is very useful in giving basic knowledge [in] for example, color grading for photography, or teaching people how to use complex tools like Photoshop,” he said. “It makes the process of learning a lot more streamlined, but it’s easily abused.”
Tse said he disapproves of generated art in the field of photography and worries that it cannot create art to the level of human beings.
“I think AI does make hollow images in that usually human photographers, their styles depend on where they grew up, their cultures, their personalities. AI doesn’t have any of those characteristics so it does feel hollow, because there’s no story behind it,” he said.
Tse — who had been following OpenAI’s financial situation — said the company has been making risky ventures, some of which would fail.
“The way OpenAI operates is very risky … they spend a lot of money and give out a lot of IOUs when they don’t make a lot of money, and that indirectly caused the shutdown of Sora,” he said. “All these tools are not created because they have the consumer in mind, but mostly because they have their own financials in mind.”
Eberly agreed, saying AI tools are “profiting off of peoples’ creative intelligence.”
“These tools are a money grab … it’s for billionaires, it’s for tech workers. It actually is detrimental to creative people,” Eberly said.
Hanson said while he understands artists are expensive, their talent is what makes the art special.
“We need to focus on protecting these jobs that really can’t be copied by anything because a computer can’t copy what a human artist can really do,” he said.
While Sora did threaten artists, Hanson said, it also motivated many of them to fight back.
“It’s horrible, but at the same time, it kind of lit a fire under the art community,” she said. “I think artists, now that they’re really under threat, have gotten really inspired to create and push and protest.”
