#sora shutdown

[zeepatomicarts]

Anybody think it’s funny that two of the most recent headlines that have been shaking up the internet both involve AIs dying in some way?

[liliesareblooming]

Everyone rejoice!!!Sora is shutting tf down!!!

[sketchanimations]

It’s Dead! - Furry OC Art

LETS GOOOOOOOOOO!

[duchesscelestia]

this week's video discussing the sora shutdown and whether or not it means the ai bubble is finally about to burst is now live!

[the-wisper-report]

So Long, Sora

Profit drives business, this is not news for anyone. When a profit margin does not reach projected levels, or is bleeding cash just to maintain itself, it’s not sustainable in the long term. This is Economics 101. Case in point, OpenAI’s Sora. The standalone AI-generated app is shutting down amidst a failed deal with Disney and the ongoing controversy over deepfake content as produced by LLM’s. Hollywood has been among the loudest voices against AI-generation of likenesses and voices, being concerned that live actors would no longer necessary for entertainment. X’s Grok has been in and out of the news for deepfake videos and images of explicit content, leading to investigations into the ethics and legality of AI visual media. And this isn’t even touching on the vulnerabilities rampant in AI, like misinformation, prompt injection and other malicious exploitation of the various toolkits for conducting malware campaigns and attacks.

While OpenAI has not released an official reason for why it’s shutting down the app, speculation is that it’s purely monetary. Production and platform support are expensive, and investment has not been outweighed by earnings. A large number of news outlets have reported on the shutdown, but TechCrunch actually has some figures in their article. According to the mobile intelligence firm Appfigures, Sora peaked in downloads in November, with over 3 million users. But by February, that number had dropped to just over 1 million. Contrast that with ChatGPT, with a weekly usage of 900 million. Appfigures estimates that Sora made roughly 2.1 million dollars from in-app purchases over the course of its lifetime, with an operating cost of 15 million. It simply doesn’t add up.

The deal with Disney – itself a surprise, given how the media giant views copyright infringement – would have been for a three year contract, with an investment of over a billion dollars as part of the deal. With this news, that’s obviously off the table. However, OpenAI announced recently that it had received a $110 billion infusion from SoftBank, NVIDIA and Amazon. And with this shutdown of their video aspect, OpenAI is saying they will move forward with a focus on more text based products, like rival Anthropic. Perhaps integrating Sora into ChatGPT, as some hypothesize. I doubt the technology will be discarded altogether.

And therein lies another possible culprit for the failure of Sora: competition. Claude, the flagship AI of Anthropic, is arguably a tighter, more refined LLM (at least in terms of its capabilities). But I think it isn’t just that. With Anthropic pulling out of a US government deal to provide surveillance tech – and OpenAI’s willingness to step into its place, both factors are important here – the userbase has spoken. Integrity, ironic as it is from what is essentially a pattern recognizing machine, seems to be of more value than parodying celebrities and animated characters doing nonsensical things.

I’m sure there will be further details as this unfolds. OpenAI promises such in their post on X. But I can’t help but wonder if this is the first pebble in the rockslide heralding an end to LLM popularity. AI does have its place, especially in terms of that aforementioned pattern recognition ability, but we can barely escape its ubiquitous presence in just about every product available online these days to the point where oversaturation has coined new terms to describe the quality of it, or lack thereof. At the end of the day, consumers still drive profits by deciding which one they actually want to use. And that’s just the cost of doing business.

Posted, 3/25/26

[ensti902]

THANK YOU KINGER

[unnatural-yoghurt]

need me an alt man to open me up and inflate my market cap

sora i barely know er

[sammyisbored2006]

i just heard that sora is shutting down so i drew........this

i'm not gonna finish it