Meta presents Movie Gen, an AI-powered video generator.

Meta has introduced an AI-powered video generator that produces high-definition material accompanied by sound. This news comes a few months after OpenAI launched Sora, its text-to-video generation model, although there is no public access to Movie Gen yet.

This new software uses text inputs to automatically create new videos, as well as allowing the editing of existing material or still images. The company also reported that the audio included in the videos is generated through AI, combining ambient sounds, sound effects, and background music that match the visuals. Recordings can be generated in different aspect ratios.

Among its capabilities, Movie Gen not only generates new clips but also can create personalized videos from images or modify elements of already existing recordings. One example provided shows a woman in a still image, and the resulting video presents her sitting in a pumpkin patch while enjoying a drink.

Moreover, Movie Gen has the ability to edit previously recorded material, changing styles and transitions or adding elements that were not present before. In one of the shared examples, a video of an illustrated runner is modified in different ways: in one frame, he holds pom-poms, in another, the background is altered to show a desert, and in a third, the runner is dressed in a dinosaur costume. All these changes can be made through text prompts.

Almost two years after AI-powered image and video generators began to gain popularity, companies in the sector have advanced the technology. Recently, big tech names like Google and OpenAI have been developing similar tools, including Sora, which has not yet been released to the public.

Chris Cox, Meta's product director, commented that the company is not ready to launch this product in the short term, citing high costs and generation times as key obstacles. Additionally, the arrival of AI video generators has heightened concerns about intellectual property and the potentially harmful use of these technologies. Some reports suggest that the startup Runaway trained its video generator using thousands of videos extracted from YouTube, which has been pointed out as a violation of the platform's terms of use by its CEO, Neal Mohan.

Meta has indicated that it trained Movie Gen using a combination of licensed and publicly available datasets, without specifying which ones. The concern also extends to creatives, such as filmmakers, photographers, artists, writers, and actors, who fear how AI generators will impact their work. This topic has become central in various strikes, including the historic joint Hollywood strike driven by the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA) last year.