Recently, the American artificial intelligence research company OpenAI released its first Wensheng video model Sora, which can generate high-definition videos up to one minute with text commands, and then attracted widespread attention and many shocks. Musk exclaimed that "human beings admit to gambling and lose", and many people even said that "the director will lose his job in the later stage". After all, this model called "the artifact of making films" came out, which means that perhaps every ordinary person who uses it can realize the "dream of directing". Many people are already imagining that ChatGPT will generate creative copy and script, and Sora will generate cool advertising blockbusters in a few minutes from the text.
How does the advent of Sora affect the video industry? Will it bring "disruptive impact"? Will the work of film and television production practitioners be gradually replaced by them? Recently, the reporter talked with a number of industry figures and scholars.
When Sora comes out, the special effects company will die?
Practitioner: It's a bit difficult to "liberate" the late stage of film and television
Once Sora came out, many people believed that the film and television industry would be the first to be affected, especially the film and television post production.
After learning that Sora video was released, Yu Gang, the co-founder of Time Matrix, said that his mind was "ice and fire": on the one hand, the first reaction of "Is the special effects company dying?" made him want to "bury" the special effects tools he learned in the past; On the other hand, he was very happy. He thought that the most expensive dynamic rehearsal link, shooting videos, making special effects and putting them on the screen, could achieve cost savings through AI.
However, for Yu Gang's second point of view, Mr. Zhou, a film and television late practitioner, is conservative and optimistic. He told reporters that it was a bit difficult to rely on Sora to "liberate" the late stage of film and television: "because people are social people, have many ideas and ideas, and have to face thousands of needs." Mr. Zhou believed that Sora would become an auxiliary tool in the future. At the same time, he also questioned that the generated video is not like the text and image generated works, which is not convenient for manual processing of the "last mile".
Mr. Zhou further explained that the film and television post production industry is not a "mechanized operation" like many people's stereotype. It is not enough to do design only to meet Party A's needs, but also to guide Party A's thinking and add their own ideas. The later stage is a large range, involving shooting, editing, packaging, color mixing, and three-dimensional, which can be subdivided. It is difficult for the program to understand such a huge amount of knowledge clearly. " Mr. Zhou said.
Sora can have a "subversive" impact?
Expert: Many links in the video industry are difficult to replace
In fact, the Wensheng video model is not a new track, and OpenAI is not the only pioneer of the track. In June 2023, Runway, an AI startup supported by Google, released the large model Gen-2, which can generate film Grade film; In November of the same year, Pika, an animation video production company, launched a product that can generate minute level high-quality animation videos.
However, Sora can quickly produce high-quality videos of up to one minute, making "disruptive technology" and "disruptive industry" become hot keywords in the industry. Du Xiaomeng, assistant researcher of the National Development Research Institute of Peking University and vice dean of BiMBA Business School, said that Sora has really improved its effect compared with the previous video models Pika and Runway. But Sora is a gradual breakthrough in technology, not particularly revolutionary, and has not changed the nature of productivity and production relations.
Du Xiaomeng believes that this is a tool to improve efficiency. It doesn't need to be done frame by frame, but it doesn't mean that people are no longer needed. She said that the improvement of efficiency would bring about two choices: personnel compression or workload expansion. "If you choose to reduce costs, two people can now do the work that you did with 10 people. But I see more cases where I can take more work because of this tool. So I think that companies using this tool will be able to compete against companies that do not use this tool." In addition, Du Xiaomeng pointed out that, There are many links in the video industry that cannot be replaced, such as creativity.
Prediction of well-known screenwriters:
AI may replace the "70/80/10 creation" in the future
"This is what we want. Especially for writers like me, we can generate videos directly from words." Wang Hailin, a well-known screenwriter, said that in his opinion, Sora is not involved in the challenge to screenwriters for the time being, but it has a great impact on directors and actors responsible for producing pictures.
For Sora, Wang Hailin boldly predicted that in the future, AI will replace 90% of the directors and production teams, as well as 70%~80% of their creative and less creative work. "What can be replaced is the creation that can take 70% or 80%. The one that is very high cannot be replaced, and the one that is very low does not need to be replaced." Nevertheless, in Wang Hailin's opinion, artificial photography has its humanistic value, which may better reflect the spiritual attributes of human beings. Just like after machine products occupy the market, there are still handmade products that are respected. He conjectured that in the future, film and television works that are completely artificially produced will become a narrow audience market, just like small theater dramas that are only for dozens of people at a time.
In the opinion of Guan Yadi, a veteran filmmaker and the anchor of the video podcast "Open Dialogue", front-line practitioners in the film industry will not panic, because the charm of the film core is actually cultural and emotional exchanges, which can not be replaced, at least the current AI does not have this ability. But before AI has the ability to drive the world, humans and AI can coexist.
"Substitution didn't come so quickly"
There are still many difficulties for Sora to commercialize
As a screenwriter, Wang Hailin said frankly that the screenwriting industry is indeed facing the challenge of ChatGPT. In fact, last year's super long strike by American Hollywood actors and writers pointed to AI. Wang Hailin pointed out that after the emergence of new technologies such as ChatGPT, many creative jobs are afraid of their jobs or being replaced; But after a period of time, it seems that it is not so fast at present, and some low-level and simple labor is often replaced. "I thought it would be very soon, but after a few years, some of the things I was worried about did not appear."
Mr. Zhou pointed out that the emergence of CG technology once alarmed the film and television industry, and it has also become the hero of visual effect blockbusters, but it was found that it can not replace the effect of live shooting. At present, film and television still focus on live shooting, and only use CG when it can not be actually presented or for the purpose of saving money. More directors advocate full live shooting, not CG.
Wang Hailin said that technical problems have always been more than simple technical problems. At present, the problems of laws, regulations and industry support have not been solved. This is also the problem that Du Xiaomeng thinks Sora needs to solve when it moves towards real commercial application - a single technology needs a series of technological blessings. At present, Sora, like ChatGPT, can land in limited scenes. In her opinion, the scene of metacosmic simulation is very promising, but whether this scene can have a relatively large development depends on the breakthrough of VR, MR related technologies, head display, glasses and other hardware technologies in addition to its own. A single technology is restricted; If the relevant technologies generate relatively good synergy, in addition to the scene of the metauniverse, the game and pan video industries will bring about relatively big breakthroughs, including advertising, media, film and television, and we media. According to Red Star Journalism
News extension
Sora makes the capital market smell the opportunity of new wealth creation
The new AI (artificial intelligence) giant OpenAI launched the Wensheng video model Sora, which made the capital market smell new opportunities for wealth creation. Benefiting from the concept of Sora, five theme ETFs related to AI, namely cloud computing theme, AI theme, big data theme, 5G theme and communication theme, as well as two major industry ETFs related to AI, namely game animation industry and film and television media industry, showed different degrees of growth in the two trading days after the Spring Festival of the Dragon Year. According to statistics, among the top ten ETF funds that rose in the two trading days after the festival, the ETF related to Sora concept has occupied six seats. Specifically, as of the closing of February 20, the cumulative increases of Cathay Pacific China Securities All Index Communication Equipment ETF, New Huazhong Securities Cloud Computing 50ETF, Huaxia China Securities Animation Game ETF, Cathay Pacific China Securities Animation Game ETF, Harvest China Securities Communication ETF, and Huatai Berry China Securities Animation Game ETF in two trading days were 8.12%, 7.30%, 6.92%, 6.86%, 6.73%, and 6.70% respectively.
It is worth mentioning that the reporter found that many fund managers had already taken positions in several Sora concept stocks in the fourth quarter of 2023 in advance. Among them, China Europe Fund Manager Zhou Weiwen's three products have increased their holdings in Zhongji Xuchuang; Mo Haibo, the fund manager of Wanjia Fund, bought Xin Yisheng into the top ten heavy position stocks for the first time for the six products under his management; The quantitative multi strategy of Guojin Fund under Ma Fang, Deputy General Manager of the Quantitative Investment Business Department of Guojin Fund, has become the public offering product with the most heavy positions of 360; The top ten stocks with mixed returns of Noam Fund managed by Liu Huiying are almost core concept stocks of CPOs.
Under the Sora boom, which segments are expected to become the investment hot spots in the Year of the Dragon? What is the future development space of AI? Luo Guoqing, ETF fund manager of GF CSI Media, believes that Sora will have a profound impact on the media creative industry. The IP+AI tool may greatly improve the liquidity efficiency of the media industry, enhance the potential of business value, and better improve the business model that has been criticized by the film and television industry. In downstream fields such as short videos, creation tools, games, etc., Sora and other AI native products are expected to be integrated into the workflow, enhance user experience, reduce user barriers, further reduce creation costs, and greatly expand the boundaries of creators' capabilities. Zhu Chenzhe, fund manager of Minsheng Jiayin Fund, believes that with the internal volume of the AI industry, the core demand for computing power and storage will gradually expand. First, AI chip is the carrier of computing power and an important measure of the development level of AI. On the other hand, while the AI chip processes a large amount of data, the optical module achieves higher bandwidth and longer transmission distance through optical fiber transmission. The combination of the two enables high-speed data transmission. （ Source: Chongqing Morning Post ）
