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OpenAI unceremoniously killed off<\/a> its text-to-video AI app Sora last month, bringing an abrupt end to months of brain-melting AI slop<\/a>. Even what was supposed to be a\u00a0groundbreaking $1 billion deal<\/a>\u00a0with Disney was caught in the crossfire<\/a>.<\/p>\n And as the Wall Street Journal reports<\/a>, it wasn\u2019t the massive bills or the legal liabilities<\/a> arising from rampant copyright infringement that inspired it to kill the app. Instead, the company was desperately looking to free up computing resources to power its coding and enterprise products based on its upcoming AI model, code-named Spud.<\/p>\n To executives\u2019 frustration, compute remains a finite resource<\/a> and infamously hard to come by, despite the industry pouring billions of dollars<\/a> worth of borrowed cash into buildouts of enormous data centers. That should serve as a warning to every startup in the space, large or small: not attracting users is a problem, but if they show up in droves, it\u2019s going to be a bottleneck and potential financial disaster.<\/p>\n According to the WSJ, Sora \u201cnow looks like an expensive strategic miscalculation\u201d in hindsight, a bitter lesson learned and a dire warning to AI startups everywhere not get bogged down by \u201cdistracting side quests<\/a>,\u201d as OpenAI\u2019s CEO of applications, Fidji Simo, told employees in a memo<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n It also goes to show how quickly the tides can change in a chaotic industry that still hasn\u2019t found its footing, let alone a path to profitability.<\/p>\n In his September announcement<\/a>, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman likened the launch of Sora to a \u201c\u2018ChatGPT for creativity\u2019 moment,\u201d that feels \u201cfun and new.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCreativity could be about to go through a Cambrian explosion, and along with it, the quality of art and entertainment can drastically increase,\u201d he gushed at the time.<\/p>\n But to call Altman\u2019s breathless vision for the experience shortsighted would be a vast understatement. Users grew tired of the endless parade of meaningless AI slop in a matter of just a few months. After initially topping Apple\u2019s App Store charts,\u00a0downloads plummeted<\/a>, with users willing to entertain the \u201cunholy abomination<\/a>\u201d for long.<\/p>\n In a paper<\/a> published one week before the launch of Sora, researchers from the open-source AI platform Hugging Face detailed how text-to-video generators use up a staggering amount of energy<\/a> compared to text-based chatbots.<\/p>\n Financial filings in November confirmed that OpenAI was burning through many billions of dollars a quarter<\/a> \u2014 and Sora more than likely played a big part in that.<\/p>\n