Video model Sora drops on day 3 of OpenAI's 12 days of products and demos

Screenshot by David Grober/ZDNET

With the holiday season upon us, many companies are finding ways to take advantage through deals, promotions, or other campaigns. OpenAI has found a way to participate with its "12 days of OpenAI." 

On Wednesday, OpenAI announced via an X post that starting on Dec. 5, the company would host 12 days of live streams and release "a bunch of new things, big and small," according to the post. 

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Here's everything you need to know about the campaign, as well as a round-up of every day's drops. 

What are the '12 days of OpenAI'?

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared a bit more details about the event, which kicked off at 10 a.m. PT on Dec. 5 and will occur daily for 12 weekdays with a live stream featuring a launch or demo. The launches will be both "big ones" or "stocking stuffers," according to Altman. 

What has been dropped so far?

Monday, December 9

OpenAI teased the third-day announcement as "something you've been waiting for," followed by the much-anticipated drop of its video model -- Sora.  Here's what you need to know:

• Known as Sora Turbo, the video model is smarter and cheaper than the February model that was previewed. 
• Access is coming in the US later today; users need only ChatGPT Plus and Pro.
• Sora can generate video-to-video, text-to-video, and more. 
• ChatGPT Plus users can generate up to 50 videos per month at 480p resolution or fewer videos at 720p. The Pro Plan offers 10x more usage. 
• The new model is smarter and cheaper than the previewed February model. 

• Sora features an explore page where users can view each other's creations. Users can click on any video to see how it was created. 
• A live demo showed the model in use. The demo-ers entered a prompt and picked aspect ratio, duration, and even presets. I found the live demo video results to be realistic and stunning. 
• OpenAI also unveiled Storyboard, a tool that lets users generate inputs for every frame in a sequence. 

Friday, December 6:

On the second day of "shipmas," OpenAI expanded access to its Reinforcement Fine-Tuning Research Program:

• The Reinforcement Fine-Tuning program allows developers and machine learning engineers to fine-tune OpenAI models to "excel at specific sets of complex, domain-specific tasks," according to OpenAI. 
• Reinforcement Fine-Tuning refers to a customization technique in which developers can define a model's behavior by inputting tasks and grading the output. The model then uses this feedback as a guide to improve, becoming better at reasoning through similar problems, and enhancing overall accuracy.
• OpenAI encourages research institutes, universities, and enterprises to apply to the program, particularly those that perform narrow sets of complex tasks, could benefit from the assistance of AI, and perform tasks that have an objectively correct answer. 
• Spots are limited; interested applicants can apply by filling out this form. 
• OpenAI aims to make Reinforcement Fine-Tuning publicly available in early 2025.

Thursday, December 5: 

OpenAI started with a bang, unveiling two major upgrades to its chatbot: a new tier of ChatGPT subscription, ChatGPT Pro, and the full version of the company's o1 model. 

The full version of o1: 

• Will be better for all kinds of prompts, beyond math and science
• Will make major mistakes about 34% less often than o1-preview, while thinking about 50% faster
• Rolls out today, replacing o1-preview to all ChatGPT Plus and now Pro users 
• Lets users input images, as seen in the demo, to provide multi-modal reasoning (reasoning on both text and images) 

ChatGPT Pro:

• Is meant for ChatGPT Plus superusers, granting them unlimited access to the best OpenAI has to offer, including unlimited access to OpenAI o1-mini, GPT-4o, and Advanced Mode
• Features o1 pro mode, which uses more computing to reason through the hardest science and math problems 
• Costs $200 per month 

Where can you access the live stream?

The live streams are held on the OpenAI website, and posted to its YouTube channel immediately after. To make access easier, OpenAI will also post a link to the live stream on its X account 10 minutes before it starts, which will be at approximately 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET daily. 

What can you expect?

The releases remain a surprise, but many anticipate that Sora, OpenAI's video model initially announced last February, will be launched as part of one of the bigger drops. Since that first announcement, the model has been available to a select group of red teamers and testers and was leaked last week by some testers over grievances about "unpaid labor," according to reports.  

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Other rumored releases include a new, fuller version of the company's o1 LLM with more advanced reasoning capabilities, and a Santa voice for OpenAI's Advanced Voice Mode, per code spotted by users only a couple of weeks ago under the codename "Straw."