OpenAI Just Killed Sora

28 Mar 2026 · 43 min · 18 chapters

Ask about this episode

Ask anything about it. ChatGPT or Claude reads this page and answers with the times it was said.

Connect VO and ask about every podcast you hear, including the moments you saved. Add to ChatGPT · Add to Claude

In short

The episode discusses OpenAI shutting down Sora (the Sora app and API access) and what that signals about OpenAI’s priorities. Guests argue Sora’s “fatal flaw” was licensed IP being removed after the first ~48 hours, making outputs less fun; they cite their best early meme/video edits (e.g., “Mandalorian station”) and say Sora lagged behind alternatives like Kling, Runway, Luma, and others. They claim OpenAI is reallocating scarce GPUs toward higher-return enterprise coding/tools (Codex-like) and toward AGI, while competitors (e.g., Claude) are winning in coding and shipping consumer features faster. They also mention the Disney/Sora deal and the “Critters” project as likely dead/paused. Other segments cover Epic Games cutting 1,000+ jobs (Fortnite slowdown; not AI-related), Sony winding down Pixamondo (virtual production stages), and Google’s TurboQuant compression paper plus Gemini 3.1 Flash generating websites on the fly.

Guests

Addy (co-host). No other guest names are identified in the transcript.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

The Downfall of Sora

0:45 to 2:52

The hosts discuss the recent news of OpenAI shutting down the Sora app and its implications.

“I think the move that was the fatal flaw of Sora, the app, was they had the licensed IP stuff in there the first couple of days.”

User Experience with Sora

2:52 to 4:58

The hosts share their personal experiences with the Sora app and its initial appeal.

“So, I mean, from their own admission statement, they're trying to cut down on distractions, and Sora is a distraction.”

Sora's Potential and Missed Opportunities

4:58 to 8:06

Discussion on what Sora could have done differently to ensure its longevity and success.

“it's one of, I don't know, 15 that you can use today.”

OpenAI's Strategic Shift

8:06 to 11:00

The hosts analyze OpenAI's focus and resources as they pivot towards more profitable ventures.

“I would still be shocked if, like, Sora was the one and only model used in that.”

The Future of AI Models

11:00 to 14:05

A conversation on the evolving landscape of AI models and predictions for future developments.

“I mean, there's like, you know, we're talking about AI bubble.”

The Rise and Fall of Sora

14:05 to 15:05

Explore the initial excitement around Sora and its eventual decline.

“when Sora was first teased with the clips and the spaceman in the desert and, like, the girl on the train.”

Epic Games Layoffs: What Happened?

15:06 to 17:08

Discuss the recent layoffs at Epic Games and their implications.

“To shut down or just layoff-y announcements.”

The Impact of Competition on Gaming

17:09 to 19:21

Analyze how competition from various entertainment forms affects gaming.

“that happened, I'm going to say 2024, right?”

Roblox vs. Fortnite: Retaining Users

19:22 to 23:04

Compare strategies of Roblox and Fortnite in retaining their user bases.

“And we know that way too well in the movie.”

The Future of Gaming Talent After Layoffs

23:05 to 24:42

Discuss the potential for laid-off Epic employees in the AI sector.

“Apple and Epic are kind of similar in the way that they have, for the most part, have not adopted AI.”
Show all 18 chapters

Pixelmando and the Shift in Virtual Production

24:43 to 27:06

Examine the winding down of Pixelmando and its implications for Sony's strategy.

“There's not enough of us in here that understand what a frame is, what frame composition is, what contrasts, basic things.”

AI's Influence on the Future of VFX

27:07 to 28:00

Explore the interplay between AI and traditional VFX in the industry.

“And when I heard that, I was like, oh, that's crazy because I was not expecting that.”

AI's Impact on Film Production

28:00 to 29:40

Explore how AI could reshape film production and visual effects.

“One of the questions I have to ask you, tell me what you think.”

The Future of Virtual Production

29:40 to 31:30

Discuss the potential trajectories of virtual production technologies.

“maybe you don't need a huge massive wall or a very heavily AI-assisted VAD to speed up that process.”

Google's TurboQuant and AI Efficiency

31:30 to 36:40

Understand Google's latest innovation in AI efficiency and its implications.

“and what Sony was demonstrating, and they had new products in virtual production.”

Generative Websites and Future Web Experiences

36:40 to 40:00

Examine the potential of AI in creating personalized web experiences.

“And then maybe that's the solution for like the project or whatever you're working on at the moment.”

Discussion on New Features and GeoCities

42:01 to 42:29

Exploration of potential website generation features and reminiscing about GeoCities.

“Let us know what you think of these new potential features.”

Encouraging Subscriber Engagement

42:31 to 42:53

Hosts discuss the importance of subscriptions and listener engagement on Spotify.

“Addy is always in the Spotify, so he's looking.”
Hear the part that matters, and keep it.Open this episode in VO. Double tap your headphones to save a moment as you listen.
Get VO free

Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00Joey:Sora was one of those models where when I'm making stuff, it's one of those, I don't think about you at all. Models.

0:06Addy:The Jon Hamm thing in the elevator? The Jon Hamm. Yeah, I don't think about you. Yes.

0:10Joey:Can we edit that meme into this video?

0:17Joey:All right, welcome back to DaNoise. How's it going, Addy? I'm back in town. Let's do it. Back in town. Yeah, you're on a trip in AI land, right?

0:24Addy:Yes.

0:26Joey:All right, speaking of AI land, big model Fallen, Sora. RIP Sora

0:30Addy:2024 to 2026 Goodbye sir

0:35Joey:Alright so OpenAI announced that they are shutting down the Sora app but I believe it is also the whole model the API access not further developing it big news in the AI video world though I don't know I'm not too heartbroken over this one Sora was one of those models where when I'm making stuff it's one of those I don't think about you at all models the Jon Hamm thing in the elevator the Jon Hamm the Mad Men yes

1:05Addy:so you and I used the Sora app heavily for like those two three weeks

1:10Joey:not even I would even call it heavily I did I like everyone we got the Sora app it was a fun novelty and then then you kind of stopped using it right I think there was huge potential

1:20Addy:I mean I'm not like meh about it I'm kind of sad about it because other companies could have followed suit and figured out a genuine TikTok competitor at that scale of billions of videos and all that stuff. I think the move that was the fatal flaw of Sora, the app, was they had the licensed IP stuff in there the first couple of days. You remember my video of me and the Mandalorian station?

1:48Joey:It was unlicensed IP.

1:51Addy:It was the wild west for the first 48 hours and that's when I generated my best stuff. And then as the IP stuff started to get taken away, it started to get more boring and boring. And it's like, OK, how many times I'm going to just generate myself? It's only funny to me. You know, like I want to and you like you were my buddy on it. You're like, I guess that's at ease kind of funny here. OK. And I think the approach they should have taken was what Fortnite did with the seasons. So, you know, when Fortnite drops like a Star Wars season, they they paid Disney for all that stuff. They ingest it into Fortnite, and it's freaking fun for the kids, right?

2:28Addy:Like, they get to be Darth Vader and stuff like that. In the same vein of thought, Sora should have done the same. They should have paid for IP. Now, I know it's a difficult foreign concept for AI companies to pay for IP, but this is standard practice for media companies. And I think they would have had more longevity there and for sure more engagement and less of a fall-off as the app got older.

2:51Joey:I think there's other stuff at play here. So, I mean, from their own admission statement, they're trying to cut down on distractions, and Sora is a distraction. We talked about this before. Like, Emini, the film industry, is a, like, big for us, very tiny, insignificant little sliver for these companies. They're more interested in how can the large language models be an enterprise and be useful and be part of all these companies' everyday lives. Robotics, world models, autonomous vehicles. making funny meme videos and then potentially also making Hollywood level animations. Tiny market. Good for publicity.

3:28Joey:Tiny market. But the social media app and the platform, that's a big market. Potentially, but that's such a huge lift to then try to go and try to build a TikTok competitor. I think they had that potential route with the Disney deal, where Disney was like investing a billion bucks. They were going to use the Sora tech and kind of build this Disney plus, you know, interact with Disney characters. That whole deal is dead as well. So that whole, Disney's getting their money back and whatever was going to come of that deal is gone. Maybe Disney will do something with another model or build their own thing, which is totally doable and plausible.

4:00Joey:They don't really need Sora for that. But I think that route was potentially there. I think just as a bigger OpenAI strategy, I think they were doing a lot of things in a lot of areas. I think getting a little bit lost. Claude has caught up tremendously. And Claude has kind of taken over in the coding space. and OpenAI is now putting their resources towards codecs and building these coding tools because that's where people will pay and companies will pay and they actually get productivity improvements. And given the resources...

4:31Addy:Yeah, the enterprise revenue is in software automation

4:35Joey:and things like that. Yeah, and I think it's just like a resource issue of you have these limited GPUs and where do you train and how do you allocate that? And obviously video and running these models, these video models is intensive. and are you getting returns on that? No, probably not. Better to focus on practical uses. Fair enough.

4:53Addy:And I think Sora, the video model, for example, the Comfy API node, the Sora node, it's one of, I don't know, 15 that you can use today.

5:03Joey:Yeah, and that's what I'm saying when it's like a model picker choice. Sure, there was a Sora app and Sora was good for these kind of character meme-y things, but the quality wasn't there. So if I'm trying to generate something just like from a basic video generation model i'm usually defaulting to like cling or vo or you know then maybe luma or runway or something like so it's kind of like nowadays yeah yeah yeah so or c dance and yeah we could talk about them in a second but um yeah like sora was very bottom of it was probably like in the croc category of like models i would try yeah alt models i would like get to for what uh for what you know we're trying to do here they sell so

5:44Addy:hot topic, it's alt.

5:48Joey:You know, I think there's two other things. Like for one, I don't fully know what was under the hood. And, you know, we're not AI scientists, but like you look at VO and Google and it's very clear, like everything that they have been doing around their entire AI ecosystem is somewhat unified and somewhat part of like a large world model. You know, VO, Genie, Gemini, they're all like, you know, in this process of like a big, large world model. I don't know if Sora is there.

6:17Addy:Quality bar wise, all the Google products are hitting the same level of quality across the board. And you're like, huh, how is it so consistent across the board? So there must be some grand architecture that we're not aware of.

6:31Joey:Yeah. And it's like, I don't know if Sora is there, if there was any way that Sora, besides being a video generation model, has world understanding, is a world model, could integrate with chat, can like integrate with all those things and then potentially lead to more lucrative product lines. Like was the plan for Sora ever to be a world model that could potentially work for robotics or autonomous vehicles? Like it's pretty clear that Google's models and what Luma is trying to do and all these other models. I don't know. I don't know enough about what was under the hood, but that could also just be like, it's just like, what's the future for where can Sora go?

7:10Addy:Yeah, like Google to me seems more like NVIDIA where they're trying to catch all industries and they have like a big grand plan. Whereas OpenAI, I think to me at least the perception is that they're super pursuing AGI, ASI and then like ChatGPT and Codex and all the stuff is just kind of there to make revenue for today. But like their main goal is to just make AGI.

7:34Joey:Yeah, I mean, yeah, we've kind of forgot about that too. Yeah, the AI is still the goal.

7:39Addy:It's nuclear fusion. It's always 20 years away.

7:42Joey:Yeah, less so with the Sora videos. Yeah. You know, the other thing I was wondering, like, you know, Sora had that deal to make Critters, which was supposed to premiere at Cannes to be that kind of Pixar-level animated film for$30 million. Don't know what the deal with that is, but I'm guessing either maybe they finish that up or not. It's probably dead, my guess, if we haven't heard of it. Yeah, I mean, if the film got far enough along, might as well finish it. I would still be shocked if, like, Sora was the one and only model used in that. Like, it's got to be a combination of models and methodologies.

8:17Addy:Yeah, also, like, side note here, the image, is it called ImageGen? Their image generator?

8:22Joey:I think now, ImageGen was Google's original name. 1.5. It's now just, like, ChatGPT image. ChatGPT image generator? Yeah. That's untouched.

8:31Addy:It hasn't gotten better. They just kept it at the quality level from 12 months ago, right? Ancient. It's ancient in our standards, yeah.

8:42Joey:No, they did 1.5, which I think came out end of last year. So an update, but nothing as earth-shattering as every Nano Banana update has been.

8:54Addy:Yeah, I think OpenAI is sort of, they see Anthropic as their main competitor, obviously like Dario and Sam opening each other. and so now they're sort of shaping their company to be more one-on-one with Anthropic. Like if you look at Anthropic, they don't have an image or video model. They're not messing around with M &E. They're focusing on AGI, SI and code development. And yeah, and OpenAI is like, that works.

9:20Joey:More of these sort of agentic OpenClaw-esque features in their app. I know you're not on X as much, but like Claude has been shipping a new feature. roughly every day and everyone's like what the hell like there's just like it's they're just on a roll of just like some new feature like even yesterday the new one was um like uh claude app can connect to like other apps and you sort of have tile cards in your app which is sort of this like kind of making claude this you know your central hub like everything yeah and you know and something that's consumer friendly and easy to use so yeah i think they're looking at claude has sort of just been much more focused on what they're trying to do.

10:03Joey:And OpenAI has been a little bit more all over the place. And I think it's now like, hey, we need to focus on what it is we're trying to do.

10:11Addy:Exactly. Yeah, I think they're heavily recalibrating. And it's a good time for them to do so, right? They have a new round of funding coming in, the$100 billion or whatever got funded. So, I mean, Disney's$1 billion is like, okay, we're fine without it. And they're going to just pursue this new direction. I mean, we crap on Sam Altman a lot here. If OpenAI is not a viable business model, then that does pop the AI bubble and it'll kind of have an enormous blast radius across the board for all of the AI stuff we're doing. Everything we're touching, Kling or Quen or whatever image model, everybody will be impacted by the OpenAI collapse.

10:54Addy:Yeah, I mean, I don't feel like they're close to collapsing.

10:58Joey:Do you feel like they're... It is on the news a lot. I mean, there's like, you know, we're talking about AI bubble. But yeah, it doesn't... I haven't felt that way about... Like, just like that there would be an overall OpenAI collapse.

11:12Addy:Right. So, yeah, I think the pivot and adjustment now...

Read the full transcript

11:16Joey:When they collapse, like...

11:18Addy:Well, we can go back and grab our soundbites from the Disney OpenAI deal that they... You know, that was a few months ago. like we were super like wondering what the hell that was about right i thought parts of it made

11:31Joey:sense parts of it were confusing or like didn't make sense like putting the stuff in the disney plus app or like putting some user ugc stuff in the in on the disney streaming platform that was like isn't that gonna work how do they pay it out how would they you know but like something where it's like hey i want to like make a video of myself with uh you know mickey mouse like driving with Steamboat Willie and driving the boat. And it's like, okay, that kind of makes sense. Just a meme-y, fun, kitschy way to make a silly video with characters you like.

12:03Addy:I thought, I mean, from day one, that OpenAI should have paid Disney$1 billion instead. Because this is the most profitable entertainment company in the world, and they have all the cool IP. And you just kind of do a big, chunky license for$1 billion, and then you do you. and yeah i mean i think i think i've talked about my conspiracy theory you know i was pretty sure

12:24Joey:that like open ai's plan when they released sora and had like zero ip restrictions was to more of like a showcase to be like look what we could do and then they're like oh sorry we'll roll it back but then they signed the deal with disney because it was sort of like look what we can do and i've been wondering if the c dance rollout was kind of the same playbook where it was like look what we could do oh sorry sorry we'll roll it back oh sorry but we could do this wink wink yeah for

12:49Addy:media companies to be in bed with a single ai manufacturer is is not ideal right now they're just way too many people competing at the same level i don't think there's any advantage it's

13:01Joey:like why right disney's smart at disney can you know if they're not i mean i'm sure they're trying to build out their own models but if you know they don't need to rely on sora when they can just plug and play with other models and build out their own app and not have to share the branding with anyone like sort of doesn't have that strong of a brand that there was like a boost from being like you can make a ai videos powered by sora you know disney's the bigger brand exactly and their ip characters yeah also speaking of focus with blocked but um i was just laughing at the gif of uh javier bardem from f1 yeah everyone uh the internet is very happy that sora has uh has fallen but um they're also uh putting their erotic chatbot plans on hold and oh good yeah i

13:47Addy:mean for me that was just like such a big waste of environmental resources yeah that is just so

13:51Joey:much like what it doesn't sound healthy or useful for anyone it's bad optics for the entire industry oh my last thought on this was just more of like looking back at the long life of sora it is a bit crazy how much they fumbled it though because if we remember back a million years ago two years ago when Sora was first teased with the clips and the spaceman in the desert and, like, the girl on the train. And these were, like, mind-blowing images. Like, these were, like, the most realistic, like, best-looking things we had seen. And then they, like, didn't do anything with it for months, like, half a year at least before they, like, actually released it.

14:31Joey:And by the time they released it, Kling, Vio, Luma, like, everyone had caught up in quality and had publicly available tools that by the time they came out, it was like, all right, Sora, that thing that exists. And then I, yeah. And it was heavily gated and expensive.

14:44Addy:Yeah, like the whole rollout.

14:46Joey:Yeah, you had to be on the pro plan. I mean, they built that kind of tool thing that had some interesting ideas, but now everything else has it and does it better. So for how much of a splash they caused two years ago and then seeing it shuttered today, kind of crazy. Because they were like early movers in that space. Yeah, it goes to show how effective their marketing team is.

15:07Addy:Okay.

15:08Joey:Okay. Next up, sad news. Bummer news. Sad news. To shut down or just layoff-y announcements. The first one, you sent this to me. Epic Games is cutting over 1 ,000 jobs. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of people, man.

15:24Addy:Epic is not that big of a company.

15:26Joey:Yeah. Now, they're saying it seems it's all related to Fortnite and Fortnite growth and revenue slowing down. Yeah, do you want to read Kim Sweeney's email on this?

15:37Addy:I think his email to his employees was kind of frank and kind of honest. And I thought it showed leadership there. But the reality is this sucks for a lot of people. A lot of people I know.

15:51Joey:Yeah, some of the challenges we're facing are industry-wide challenges, lower growth, weaker spending, and tougher cost economics, current consoles selling less than last generations, and games competing for time against other increasingly engaging forms of entertainment.

16:03Addy:it which is ironic because like netflix is also remember maybe not so much recently but i remember

16:08Joey:a while ago they were like yeah our competition is just youtube leisure time and it's youtube now but i remember like a few years ago it was gaming oh like yes when they're competing for time of like watch time or leisure time it wasn't against other platforms it was against like gaming and and other now it's youtube but before it was gaming since it's a thing now i should note that

16:28Addy:the layoffs aren't related to AI. To the extent it improves productivity, we want to have as many awesome developers developing great content and tech as we can.

16:37Joey:So again, he wanted to decouple this layoff

16:40Addy:from the Amazon layoffs and all the other big tech layoffs that have happened and has the AI stink on it, if you will.

16:48Joey:I mean, honestly, when I saw the headline at first, I was wondering if that was the reason, if it was going to be like, we're using AI, we have more efficiencies, we don't need these thousand developers or people. But yeah, no, he clarified it's specific to Fortnite and just that growth and revenue has slowed down there and that they need these layoffs.

17:07Addy:I just want to kind of add that this is after the 700-person layoff

17:12Joey:that happened, I'm going to say 2024, right? You remember that? Okay, kind of.

17:17Addy:And that was also along the lines of we need to focus the company around Fortnite. So that's when a lot of the VP talent was let go, because Unreal was building and display very heavily, and all the LED volume stuff. And then we thought that, okay, that adjustment happened, so now Epic's in a really good shape for the next few years, and then now this. So Fortnite has really probably taken a hit revenue-wise. And Tim Sweeney, to me, doesn't feel like one of the regular big tech CEOs. He's no Sam Altman. He's not Andy Jassy or one of those guys. He comes off as a regular guy, a regular software developer who happens to just be a multi-billionaire and a CEO of a really cool company.

18:06Addy:So I think for him to just make this decision is probably hard. Especially because they're a private company. they can kind of do what they want. They don't have to answer to shareholders. So for them to do something this drastic meant that there is significant internal trouble.

18:21Joey:Do you think doing that year, multi-year long Apple battle became a distraction or... Absolutely. I mean, yeah, that stuff takes money.

18:31Addy:It takes Tim's attention away from other things. But I think it was like a David and Goliath thing. It was a battle of principles over anything else, over revenue. and I kind of like that he fought it and he won. No, I did like too.

18:44Joey:And he was like, we're the only ones that have resources to fight this and it's like crushing smaller developers, but no one's going to be able to fight Apple.

18:51Addy:The 30 % thing was ridiculous, right? But what Epic needs now, in my opinion, is they need another Fortnite. They need another massive multiplayer, multiverse, metaverse type-y game. And I know they have had other sort of mild hits along those lines, But if Fortnite revenue falls off, you augment it with revenue from an incoming game. Unfortunately, you can't just make a hit up. A hit happens when a hit happens. And we know that way too well in the movie.

19:26Joey:Yeah, that seems like it's tied to an age group, and then they age out. And I know you're always trying to get new people in and keep it cool, but that's tough.

19:38Addy:It's funny. That's what Roblox is. Their current strategy is how to retain their users who started playing Roblox when they were 10 and now they're 20, right? And they're starting to fall off. Obviously, when you're a 20-year-old, you're not going to be playing Roblox. So a lot of what's happening is they're trying to build things inside of Roblox that retains an older audience. One of those things is just having better graphics. You don't want to play mind block, You know, blocky, choppy stuff when you're 20 years old. You want hyper-real stuff like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto. So that's one.

20:13Addy:The other one is how about meeting your partner, some sort of dating mechanism inside the community. So there's a lot of development around that. I don't know enough about Fortnite to know if that stuff was happening, but that's how you retain the audience for decades.

20:30Joey:Yeah, I don't know either. I don't know if there's a drop in, because I remember always hearing those crazy stats of digital clothing and items. that were like a billion dollars a year alone and just buying.

20:40Addy:Yeah, I think I told you that. The avatar department, which makes Roblox accessories like hair, shoes, clothes, that department's profit alone is$1 billion a year.

20:54Joey:Yeah, which is crazy. Crazy. Especially if real world expenses are jacking up. it's more expensive to just exist and live life in the real world digital clothing would probably be one of the first things to not spend as much money on if your real expenses are increasing

21:14Addy:the other weakness that Fortnite has that Roblox doesn't is Roblox runs on literally any device like a crappy Android phone can run Roblox right? With Fortnite you need a nice PC or a console or something but it sure as hell is not going to run on a crappy Android phone I don't think it is. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. And that takes away a huge amount of potential users, right? As the quote-unquote gamers, like the hardcore gamers with the NVIDIA GPU and stuff like that, as they sort of get bored of it, I mean, you're not picking up new audience.

21:49Joey:Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's another sideways-related thing to the ideas of the Metaverse slowing down.

21:56Addy:Yeah, the other big play that Epic did back a couple years ago, around the time when they did the first round of layoffs, was UEF and Unreal Engine Fortnite. So it's like a custom version of the engine that you can build your own island.

22:11Joey:For people to build. A little bit more accessible, Unreal, for people to build.

22:14Addy:Yeah, so it's kind of like an equivalent of Roblox Studio where you use Roblox Studio to build your own level and your game, UEFN, is that. The challenge was, I think, it was incredibly difficult to put a game together that's under two gigabytes or whatever the limit was. And it's not like two high school kids can do it. You actually still needed a pretty solid game developer to come in and then just finish up the last bits. So that never really took off. Like, you know, obviously there'd be in the future.

22:47Joey:The solution is something like a cloud code for Fortnite or something that makes it easier where you don't have to be a developer to build out your world. You can just kind of describe and build and then that's where AI comes in under the hood to help polish and clean it up and make it usable.

23:04Addy:Yeah, and Apple and Epic are kind of similar. Okay, stick with me on this one. Apple and Epic are kind of similar in the way that they have, for the most part, have not adopted AI. right like you know if if epic was early way yeah like just in in a fundamentally changing kind of way um if epic had put ai let's say ai blueprints or like you said ai game development and all that

23:32Joey:stuff into the engine but maybe maybe it would have helped i don't know i have to imagine stuff like that's coming and also i mean sweetie's been i remember we didn't cover this i think i had that link saved for a while but we never talked about it where he uh was it oh steam steam the gaming platform had wanted to enforce a rule that was like you have to mark if your game used ai in it or something and he was like that's a stupid label uh like you know every like if it was used to help develop like if that's going to be like common for every game and everything it's going to use ai in some part to just help speed up development you know like where do you draw that label or the line for that and so it was i'm paraphrasing with that i think it was something to that effect

24:14Addy:yeah it was like not made it's like an organic label like not made with ai label something like

24:18Joey:that something like and he was like it was a stupid thing to like have to label exactly so you know they're definitely not anti-ai maybe it's just a matter of rolling it out into the tools but i would have to imagine that there's some blueprint code sidekick thing or something coming to help

24:35Addy:regardless of what's going on in Epic my heart goes out to the people who are just amazing if you are working at Epic you are at a performance caliber personality caliber you're an amazing person if you're working there I think a lot of those folks I hope they can transition their way into AI because just me having been on both sides and now on the AI side There is such a room for people that are creative technologists. There's not enough of us in here that understand what a frame is, what frame composition is, what contrasts, basic things. And having that eye and that lens, but also understanding the technology.

25:22Addy:I think if you got laid off out of the thousand people, you're probably one of them. and I'm rooting for you and hope you have a future in AI if you choose to.

25:32Joey:Yeah, I mean, I'm excited to see what they would develop because I think you're right that they have the skill set of what the quality we need to be and just if turbocharged with AI, I think there could be some interesting things. Yeah, for sure. Other part two of the game news. Oh, man. Pixelmando. Yeah. They're calling it winding down Pixelmando. Sony is winding down Pixelmando, but yeah, they're basically shutting down the studios. they're winding it down because a lot of the people are contractors working on projects so they're finishing up the projects and then it did say that a lot of people at pixamondo would get rolled into sony and other roles so i mean look it sucks that you know pixamondo vfx house early pioneer and virtual production stuff is it's still honestly it's a little fuzzy because the brand is winding down they did say that a lot of the stuff's just gonna roll into sony you know they have that crazy driving rig product, Akira, that we saw at CES last year.

26:29Addy:Akira.

26:29Joey:That was in LA, and then they moved it to Vancouver. And it seems like the Vancouver stage is just going to become a Sony thing. It's still fuzzy, but it sucks.

26:39Addy:I'm guessing all of their stages are coming down, like the one here in Culver City inside the Sony lot, which I spent some time in, as well as the Vancouver one. And I'm sure they have. I think they built one in Saudi Arabia for a customer, if I'm not mistaken. I'm not sure who's going to support it.

26:56Joey:Do you think they're all going to come down or maybe they'll just do less and have a few of them still up and it'll just be under Sony? I mean, regardless,

27:03Addy:so the Pixel News came first before the Epic News this last week. And when I heard that, I was like, oh, that's crazy because I was not expecting that. To be under the Sony umbrella and to have sort of the global weight and the resources that Sony has, right? This is one of the most amazing, biggest brands in the world. I thought they were safe you know I was like okay they're gonna reinvent virtual production they're gonna kind of take it into VP 3.0 in the future but then turns out no this is the end

27:34Joey:for them yeah but I mean if they're like oh we're gonna roll people into Sony and whatever then what's the difference or what's the advantage of just of getting rid of the Pixel brand and the company if you're just gonna downsize a bit but still kind of keep some of the core stuff and just roll it into the Sony group

27:49Addy:I think it's just like dismantling for parts and trying to get the most ROI you can. You've already acquired this thing for however many millions of dollars and now how do you minimize the damage, minimize the loss with this news? One of the questions I have to ask you, tell me what you think. Hypothetically speaking here, do you think the Sony executives looked at everything that's happening with AI and then they just looked at their VP business and was like, wait, these two things are in two different lanes.

28:23Joey:I mean, if they did, that feels like a big misunderstanding of what the two things do. Yeah, what is this? Do you think it's like, oh, this is jumping the gun? Because it's like, well, look, AI is really good and we don't need these big expensive VFX houses and we don't need stages. We're not at that point yet. And it's not like one or the other, like the two work in hybrid.

28:41Addy:Well, the reason I say that is because this was a really scandalous kind of thing, and it was meant to catch headlines a few years back, I think back in 24. Tyler Perry was Tyler Perry has that immense campus in Atlanta, right? It's an old military base turned into a studio lot, and within that he was going to build more stuff, including a volume, and that was right around the time Sora and some of the video models were coming out, and then he put everything on ice.

29:10Joey:He's like, wait a minute,

29:12Addy:I'm not building anything right now until I figure out what this thing is

29:16Joey:maybe but you know we've talked about this there's still uses for this and look I mean dealing with AI stuff it's basically a little maybe a little like less people and faster than if you were shooting you know like Star Wars style episode one two on a green screen and then compositing everything later you still gotta deal with all the shots afterwards and so if you can find a middle ground like House of David where you have a wall maybe a smaller wall maybe you don't need a huge massive wall or a very heavily AI-assisted VAD to speed up that process. There are hybrid worlds where these two can play hand-in-hand and you can get the best of both worlds.

29:50Joey:It's not one or the other. It also depends on the projects and what you've got to do. And potentially projection as well. That could

29:57Addy:still also have a place and

29:59Joey:be an alternative to having to build up a big LED wall.

30:03Addy:Yeah, for sure.

30:06Joey:If executives were in the Tyler Perry headspace and it was just like, all these models, they saw the C-Dance 2.0 fighting on the roof and they're like, what do we need all this stuff for?

30:17Addy:No, I don't even think it's the finished final pixel stuff. I think if you look at Beeble and Switch X and some of the relightings, you're like, wait, that's what a volume does. It relights you, it puts the background in the right place and now there's a tool doing that. And ultimately, I think the production always wants to fix it in post anyway. That's like the natural gravity of things in production. As you know, you're in production all the time. You're like, I think I'm going to just spend more time in post than try to do this live here.

30:47Joey:I mean, it was also the way we were able to cram. We did four pages and stuff in a day, and we were able to do that because we were just filming in a gray box, and we're just like, all right, move, move, move, and then we put all the shots together later in post. But post is where it's still at.

31:02Addy:I think post-AIVFX is highly TBD right now. We don't know what that's going to be. But I bet that the executives are forecasting that that's where VV eventually shifts to, is instead of real-time ICVFX and all the pressure on the stage at that time, shift that into post, but then use AI tools there.

31:26Joey:Yeah, it could be. And it could also just be, because I'm thinking back to NAB last year and what Sony was demonstrating, and they had new products in virtual production. They had their own camera try. I had a new camera tracker that they developed.

31:40Addy:Yeah, that was Ocellus.

31:43Joey:Yes. But I think the vertical for most of those applications is broadcast and live events and live performances. So that could just also be, Sony's a massive company, like how they're thinking of virtual production, less so in film industry and more so in live broadcasts and live events.

32:04Addy:Yeah. And I don't think Pixelmando plays in the broadcast world. and there are established, bonafide broadcast companies that have just owned it, like Ross, Grass Valley, and Ikegami, and these big broadcast brands that are building the volumes and the tracking systems and all that. There's Pixotope, who does a good job.

32:23Joey:Zero density, yeah, Pixotope, zero density, yeah. Where they really just dialed in on the broadcasting space and that is still relevant and needed.

32:33Addy:And Pixotope's differentiator was tier one film and television, right? Like they did the highest end of what we offer as an industry. And that's just such a small market, unfortunately. Yeah. Going back to Sora.

32:47Joey:Small market, important for our life. Okay. Do we have some good news next?

32:53Addy:All right.

32:54Joey:Let's talk about new AI stuff.

32:56Addy:Okay.

32:56Joey:So let me try to, well, I'm not even going to try to explain this paper, but let me, let me compare it to the meme. So Google came out with this new paper called TurboQuant, Redefining AI Efficiency with Extreme Compression. We've joked about Silicon Valley and Pied Piper. All the time. We wish for that show to come back all the time. This paper is being described as basically, if you remember later, the later seasons, Pied Piper accidentally came out with the middle out compression. Yes, the compression, where in Silicon Valley and the show land, it was a magical compression algorithm that would compress the video and make it super small without like losing any quality.

33:33Joey:And that was their like kind of golden ticket to their big breakthrough. So people are describing this paper as basically Google did the real life Pied Piper middle out algo.

33:43Addy:Oh, that's great.

33:44Joey:So in this explanation from Jen Zhu, it's basically for LLMs, it was a way to compress, obviously a big issue with LLMs, you have your context window, you have your memory, once it gets filled up, and you're having this kind of conversation. If the context window gets a bunch of stuff in it, then it starts veering, it starts misremembering things, and then it'll start, it'll compress it if you fill it up and you'll pick up your conversation. But in that compression, you'll be like, Hey, what about that thing we were talking about? I'll be like, I don't know what you mean. It's outside my context window.

34:14Joey:Yeah. Right. It's like, what do you talk? Yeah. Yeah. I don't even think it'll tell you that. I'll just be like, what are you, what are you talking about?

34:19Addy:I told you two days ago, I have a dental appointment. These are recurring conversations I have with open clock.

34:26Joey:so this compression is sort of like a llm compression six times memory six x memory reduction uh up to 8x faster attention and that's huge that are big numbers aggregate degradation okay i'm very simplifying explaining what this is saying why didn't you do my job joey

34:46Addy:and explain research papers so see how hard it is yeah so it's basically a research paper that

34:54Joey:can in theory take existing LLM memory and context windows and compress it without losing quality so then you could fit more stuff into the same LLM.

35:06Addy:My M &E brain instantly goes to how we can apply this. A lot of the newer video models are systems where it's not just a video generation diffusion model but also it's tied in LLMs and context windows, memory buffers, frame buffers, all that stuff. I'm guessing this is going to be super useful for a crazy set piece of 10 sequences where you want to keep a context window across the board of where all the cameras were, which scenes within each scene where the stuff is. If they have a road full of cars, how many cars were there and all that stuff. So I think this stuff will be really important in our world as the video models start to get more intelligent.

35:47Joey:Or even like gaming or like genie, like the generative world where the more you move through that world, then the more it can just remember stuff and be persistent.

35:55Addy:Yeah, I remember when we did the test with Hylea. Did I say that right? Hylea? Hylea.

36:03Joey:Yeah, Hylea.

36:04Addy:Hylea has been a pronunciation. Oh, sorry. And we were taking footsteps and you look back and the footsteps were still there.

36:12Joey:Yeah.

36:12Addy:you know and like that takes memory and that takes attention or on the generation side desert and

36:18Joey:the skid marks were on the road and then you drive back yeah they're like still there yeah yeah and right now genie is um one minute memory duration yeah so 8x i mean we can get to eight minutes come on come on pipe piper yeah so uh yeah right as a research paper but i'm curious when you know if this gets adapted into actual models and then the dream is just like yeah you keep talking to the model and it just has persistent that there is no context window it just it just

36:44Addy:knows everything or just remembers yeah i think from here on out we're gonna see these incremental innovations like this that really is like a blip on our radar we will cover it on denoised and then we'll forget about it next week but then these things sort of accumulate over time and then by

37:00Joey:the end of 2026 we're gonna have something amazing yeah or like we mentioned these things now and then you know you're working on something or trying to think of something in a few months from now and And then it's like, oh, yeah, wait, what was that thing, that paper that came out or something, that model that like applied to that thing. And then maybe that's the solution for like the project or whatever you're working on at the moment.

37:17Addy:We should have a giant context window for this podcast. So like, we forget a lot of times what we covered.

37:24Joey:I have been getting transcripts and working on stuff to try to help surface things. okay other google update gemini 3.1 flashlight can generate websites on the fly so basically imagine navigating a website but everything is being generated so this could be the future of some sort of hyper personalized website or web experience where everything you're navigating to is just being built for you e-commerce you're like going to the site and like based on your what you do, it starts building out. You're not going to like my answer. I think this is perfect for

38:04Addy:Nigerian print scammers. That is the dark side of this, yes. Like, yo, you put the PayPal link in there and then you see, you know, pay for this thing and it just auto-generates some forged website. Yeah, I mean, that's a problem with

38:20Joey:all of the generative stuff where you just make fake images of Brad Pitt asking you for money that look really good. But this is like the real-time video for web design. I think this opens up a lot of new possibilities of just like the very early stages of what have websites and the web that we know it is like being generated in real time as you navigate through it versus static or just other, you know, SQL, database, other ways that it's being built.

38:46Addy:I don't know if we need it. I don't know if we need it because websites are curated, designed by professionals that understand the human psyche, our attention, all of those things. And I don't know if this thing can replicate it to that extent.

39:00Joey:I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying.

39:04Addy:I think these, look, again, the DeepMind as a whole, as an organization, is amazing. They just drop hits after hits.

39:15Joey:What about user testing and design testing? So you're serving a different layout to everyone that goes to the website to figure out which is the best. so it's always learning. And then... Like A-B testing? Yeah, but it was like A-B to the 10th degree, so everyone's getting little tweaks or variations. Sure, I can see that. Redesigning the original website based on that learning. I think this is still early. I think this is like how... Yeah, this is still early of what does the new web look like in an AI world. Because on the flip side, the issue that I keep hitting, and it's like a thing with chatbots and agents trying to navigate the web, is when they go to a regular website, it's not a good experience for them to do stuff quickly.

40:00Joey:And so we have MCP and these other ways to connect to websites, but it's still wild west of figuring out how do we redo interfaces for both AI to do things on the web without having to rebuild all the websites. And then also if our own web experience is... I mean, if there's anything that happens new on the web, that's kind of cool because, you know, remember back to the early days of surfing the web and like GeoCities websites and kind of all these niche websites and that's kind of been killed and replaced with just algorithm feeds everywhere I think maybe you click off of our audience look at an article don't know what

40:35Addy:GeoCities websites are and I feel like there's got to be more I feel like our audience here's a little older like our age I had me a few GeoCities websites yeah GeoCities tripod homestead was one

40:50Joey:where are the other ones? Those are the main ones. GeoCities is like the main. You wanted to build a website and you didn't know what to do. Come to GeoCities. Nice. Alright, so you're like, you're skeptical on this one. Prove me wrong, you know. I'm more excited about the first one you Pied Piper. This is probably one of the most expensive web experiences if you're generating. I know it's a flash and it's a light model, but this would still be probably one of the most expensive websites to serve

41:23Addy:up to people. 10 GPUs powering that little window right now, burning coal or something.

41:28Joey:Maybe it's more for Gucci or Hermes web experience where you're getting a bespoke web service.

41:38Addy:I think for premium brands like that, you want a website that's like an envelope. It's like, welcome, Joey. You click on the envelope. It unwinds into like a leather, crunchy leather thing. And yeah, it's super luxurious. For that, I think this would be absolutely usable. I agree. So Nigerian Prince.

41:57Joey:We know you have these bags. You don't have these bags. Hermes and Nigerian Prince.

42:01Addy:Go for it, guys.

42:03Joey:All right. Good place to wrap it up. Let us know what you think of these new potential features. Do you see a, well, first off, do you remember GeoCities? And then second off, do you see potential for generated websites on the fly?

42:16Addy:Shout out GeoCities if you remember it. Come on, guys. Give us a couple of GeoCities comments. Also, on the Spotify side, if you're listening and on the stats, we see a lot of people listening who are not subscribers. Come on. Just give us one little subscription. That helps us immensely. So thank you in advance.

42:34Joey:Addy is always in the Spotify, so he's looking. He's tracking who's listening and who's not a subscriber. No, I'm not. I don't have that visibility. It's not that creepy. He's going to peer out your window like the Mark Zuckerberg looking in. We'd love to have more subscribers. Links for everything we talked about at denoisepodcast.com. Thanks for watching. We'll catch you in the next episode.

From the publisher

OpenAI has officially shut down Sora — and the story behind its collapse reveals a lot about where AI video is headed. Addy and Joey break down why Sora never found its footing despite early buzz, what the dead Disney-OpenAI deal reveals about strategic miscalculations, and why OpenAI is now redirecting resources toward enterprise coding tools to compete with Anthropic's Claude. 

They also cover Epic Games' 1,000+ layoffs tied to slowing Fortnite revenue, the winding down of virtual production studio Pixamondo under Sony, Google's TurboQuant research paper on LLM compression, and a new Gemini feature that generates websites entirely on the fly.

--

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are the personal views of the hosts and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of their respective employers or organizations. This show is independently produced by VP Land without the use of any outside company resources, confidential information, or affiliations.

More from Denoised

All 101 episodes
OpenAI Just Killed SoraDenoised · 43 min
Listen in VO