Meta unveils Movie Gen, an AI-powered video generator for creating and editing videos

Meta has announced the development of Movie Gen, an AI-powered video generator capable of creating new videos from text prompts, editing existing footage, and even altering the style and content of existing videos. This groundbreaking technology builds upon the recent advancements in AI image and video generation, following the footsteps of competitors like OpenAI's Sora.

Image credit: Meta

How Movie Gen Works

Movie Gen leverages text inputs to generate new videos, complete with AI-generated audio that complements the visual content. The tool can produce videos in various aspect ratios and offers extensive customization options. Users can create custom videos from images, modify existing footage, and even add elements that were not originally present.

However, concerns about copyright infringement continue to linger. Recent reports have highlighted concerns about AI training data, with startups like Runaway facing scrutiny for using scraped YouTube videos. Meta has acknowledged the importance of responsible AI development and stated that Movie Gen was trained on a combination of licensed and publicly available datasets. However, it didn’t disclose the specific details about the training data.

Looking ahead

While Movie Gen represents a significant milestone in AI video generation, Meta has indicated that the tool is still under development and not ready for public release. The company's Chief Product Officer, Chris Cox, has noted that the current version is expensive to run and requires lengthy generation times.

As AI video generation technology continues to evolve, we will likely see even more impressive capabilities and wider accessibility soon. It will be interesting to see how the technology affects filmmakers, actors, and other creatives, much like AI chatbots like ChatGPT have transformed the writing industry.