Thursday, October 23, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

OpenAI’s new model ‘Sora’ creates ultra-realistic videos from text

The future of AI

Published 17 February 2024
– By Editorial Staff
The image above is entirely generated from an arbitrary text description.
3 minute read

On Thursday, OpenAI presented Sora, a new model that can generate high-definition videos of up to one minute based on text descriptions. However, Sora, which means “sky” in Japanese, will not be available to the public in the near future. Instead, it is being released to a small group of researchers and academics to evaluate the risks of misuse.

“Sora is able to generate complex scenes with multiple characters, specific types of motion, and accurate details of the subject and background”, OpenAI writes on its website. “The model understands not only what the user has asked for in the prompt, but also how those things exist in the physical world.”

One of the examples of videos generated by Sora shows a couple walking through a snowy Tokyo, while cherry blossoms and snowflakes swirl around them.

OpenAI claims that the model works thanks to a “deep understanding of language”, which allows it to correctly interpret text descriptions. Yet, like almost all AI-based image and video generators, Sora is not perfect. In one example, people and streets are completely missing from the video even though the description mentions a Dalmatian dog looking out of a window and people “walking and cycling along the canals”.

OpenAI also warns that the model may have difficulty understanding causal relationships – for example, it may generate a video of a person eating a cookie, but the cookie does not receive any bite marks.

Sora is not the first text-to-video model on the market. Other companies, including Meta, Google and Runway, have either hinted at plans for or launched similar tools. However, no other tool can yet generate 60-second videos. Sora also generates entire videos at once, instead of assembling them frame by frame like other models. This ensures that subjects in the video remain themselves even when they temporarily disappear from view.

Causing concern and distaste

The emergence of text-to-video tools has raised concerns that they can be used to more easily create realistically fake videos. Generative AI has also been criticised by artists and creative professionals who worry about the technology being used to replace jobs and use copyrighted material.

OpenAI says it is working with experts in areas such as “disinformation, hateful content and bias” to test the tool before its public release. The company is also developing tools to detect videos generated by Sora and include metadata in the generated videos for easier detection.

OpenAI declined to reveal to The Times how Sora had been trained, except to say that it used both “publicly available videos” and videos licensed from copyright holders.

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Musk praises Google’s quantum breakthrough: “Starting to become relevant”

The future of AI

Published today 10:14
– By Editorial Staff
Google's quantum computer chip Willow running the Quantum Echoes algorithm is 13,000 times faster than classical supercomputers.
1 minute read

Google has developed a quantum computing algorithm that, according to the company, opens up practical applications in areas including pharmaceutical research and artificial intelligence. The new algorithm is several thousand times faster than classical supercomputers.

Google announced on Wednesday that the company has successfully developed and verified the Quantum Echoes algorithm on its Willow quantum computing chip. The algorithm is 13,000 times faster than the most advanced classical computing algorithms running on supercomputers.

According to the company’s researchers, Quantum Echoes could be used in the future to measure molecular structures, which could facilitate the development of new pharmaceuticals. The algorithm may also help identify new materials in materials science.

Another application is generating unique datasets for training AI models, particularly in areas such as life sciences where available datasets are limited.

— If I can’t prove that data is correct, how can I do anything with it?, explained Google researcher Tom O’Brien about the importance of the algorithm being verifiable.

Details about Quantum Echoes were published in the scientific journal Nature. Entrepreneur Elon Musk congratulated Google on X and noted that quantum computing is starting to become relevant.

Alphabet’s Google is competing with other tech giants such as Amazon and Microsoft to develop quantum computers that can solve problems beyond the reach of today’s computers.

Over half a billion Chinese users embrace generative AI

The future of AI

Published yesterday 11:03
– By Editorial Staff
AI services are used for intelligent search, content creation, as productivity tools, and in smart hardware.
1 minute read

The number of users of generative artificial intelligence in China has increased sharply during the first half of 2025. In June, 515 million Chinese people had access to AI services – an increase of 266 million in six months, according to official Chinese figures.

The data comes from a report presented on Saturday by the China Internet Network Information Center. It notes that domestically developed AI models have become popular among users.

A survey included in the report shows that over 90 percent of users say they prefer Chinese AI models.

Generative AI is being used in areas such as intelligent search, content creation, productivity tools and smart hardware. The technology is also being tested in agriculture, manufacturing and research.

The majority of users are young and middle-aged with higher education. Among users, 74.6 percent are under 40 years old, while 37.5 percent hold college, bachelor’s or higher degrees.

The report claims that China has become increasingly important in the global AI field. As of April, the country had filed approximately 1.58 million AI-related patent applications, representing 38.58 percent of the global total – the most in the world.

OpenAI launches AI-powered browser – challenges Google with ChatGPT Atlas

The future of AI

Published 21 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Users should be aware that ChatGPT stores all conversation data that you send to the service.
2 minute read

OpenAI on Tuesday unveiled its new AI-based browser ChatGPT Atlas, a significant step in the company’s ambition to compete with Google as the primary source for information searches on the internet. The service, initially rolling out for macOS with support for Windows, iOS and Android coming soon, will be available to all users from the start.

Browsers have quickly become the next major battleground in the AI industry. Despite Google Chrome’s long-standing market dominance, a transformative shift is now underway as AI chatbots and intelligent agents change how people work online. Several startup companies have already launched their own AI-powered browsers, including Perplexity’s Comet and The Browser Company’s Dia. Google and Microsoft have also updated Chrome and Edge respectively with AI features.

OpenAI’s chief technology officer for Atlas, Ben Goodger, emphasized in a livestream on Tuesday that ChatGPT forms the core of the company’s first browser. Users can in ChatGPT Atlas engage in dialogue with their search results, similar to the functionality in Perplexity or Google’s AI mode, writes TechCrunch.

Side panel and web history

The most prominent feature in AI-based browsers has been the built-in chatbot in a side panel that automatically receives context from what is displayed on screen. This eliminates the need to manually copy and paste text or drag files to ChatGPT. OpenAI’s product manager Adam Fry confirmed that ChatGPT Atlas also includes this feature.

Additionally, ChatGPT Atlas has a “web history,” which means ChatGPT can now log which websites the user visits and what is done on them, then use the information for more personalized responses.

AI-based browsers also contain agents designed to automate web-based tasks. In TechCrunch’s tests, early versions of these agents prove to work well for simple tasks, but they struggle to handle more complex problems reliably.

Warning: OpenAI stores user data

Users should be aware that ChatGPT stores all conversation data. According to OpenAI’s official data storage guidelines, deleted conversations are saved for up to 30 days in the company’s system, unless legal obligations require longer storage. This applies even when users actively delete their chats.

Furthermore, OpenAI uses conversations to improve its services. Following a court ruling from the New York Times, OpenAI is now forced to permanently save all chats for non-business customers, meaning data is no longer deleted at all for many users.

AI boom strengthens the Swedish krona

The future of AI

Published 17 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
The Swedish krona is the strongest European currency against the weak dollar so far this year.
1 minute read

The investment boom in artificial intelligence is beginning to make its mark on European currency markets for the first time, and according to analysts, the Swedish krona and the British pound are benefiting the most.

The United Kingdom and Sweden each received over $4 billion in private AI investments last year, placing them third and fourth respectively in the Stanford University AI Index of countries benefiting most from such investments, after the United States and China.

The Swedish krona is the strongest European currency against the weak dollar so far this year, with a rise of nearly 15%. The pound has risen 7%, reports Reuters.

Major American tech companies such as Microsoft, Meta, Google and Nvidia have announced significant investments in both countries. Microsoft has pledged £31 billion in British investments, while several tech companies are planning data centers in Sweden due to the country’s reliable electricity supply.

According to JPMorgan, the resilience of the Swedish krona and the pound can partly be explained by these countries’ standout performance in AI investments, although the effect remains relatively small so far.

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