OpenAI has pushed out its artificial intelligence video generator Sora among a larger audience. The AI platform was first presented in February but it was accessible only to select artists, filmmakers and safety testers.

Sora lets you create realistic-looking videos using text prompts, and makers of short films showcased its power at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

But an important feature — involving the generation of videos using an uploaded photo or footage of a real person as a reference — remains under testing. The company said it would allow a “subset” of Sora users access to it, but that it wouldn’t roll out the capability broadly until it had had a chance to fine-tune its “approach to safety”.

“The ability to generate a video using an uploaded photo or video of a real person as the ‘seed’ is a vector of potential misuse that we are taking a particularly incremental approach towards to learn from early patterns of use,” OpenAI said.

“Early feedback from artists indicate that this is a powerful creative tool they value, but given the potential for abuse, we are not initially making it available to all users.”

The video generation tool is being given a wider release at a time Hollywood actors have expressed concern.

“Discussions around AI were not mainstreamed. The writers’ strike (in 2023) brought it into the public discourse. Voice will happen first and image comes second. You can replace any person, whether they are an actor or not,” Cate Blanchett said in a recent interview.

“If you record for… what was earlier 30 seconds but now it’s three or four… your voice can be replicated. I am deeply concerned. You see these Tesla robots (Optimus)… our film (Rumours) looks like a sweet little documentary compared to what’s going on in the world.”

But there are Hollywood figures who are open to the technology. Filmmaker James Cameron is now on the board of directors of AI firm StabilityAI, four decades after making a film about its risks. In 1984’s The Terminator, which he wrote and directed, a rogue AI called Skynet threatened the existence of mankind.

“I’ve spent my career seeking out emerging technologies that push the very boundaries of what’s possible, all in the service of telling incredible stories,” Cameron said.

The AI video race is attracting substantial funding in China. Earlier this month, video gaming and social media giant Tencent Holdings launched a text-to-video generation tool based on its Hunyuan artificial intelligence foundation model. It can produce high-quality videos that come with changing camera angles and shadows that are compelling. In one demonstration video, a surfer was shown to ride a big wave and spin himself.

Kuaishou Technology has released its AI video tool Kling, start-up Zhipu AI has launched Ying, TikTok parent company ByteDance Ltd has unveiled Jimeng, and start-up Shengshu AI has launched Vidu. Kuaishou has gone to the extent of saying that it will use Kling to make a fantasy short film.

Many users are unable to sign up for Sora for the time being because of heavy traffic: “Sora account creation is temporarily unavailable. We’re currently experiencing heavy traffic and have temporarily disabled Sora account creation,” reads the error message.

With a ChatGPT Plus subscription, OpenAI says you can generate up to 50 priority videos (1,000 credits) at resolutions up to 720p with five-second durations. The recently announced expensive ChatGPT Pro subscription comes with “unlimited generations” and up to 500 priority videos while switching up the resolution to 1080p and the duration to 20 seconds.