OpenAI's controversial text-to-video artificial intelligence (AI) tool Sora, which sent shock waves through the entertainment industry when the company unveiled it earlier this year, was formally launched on Monday, accessible for people 18 or older where ChatGPT is available, except for in the United Kingdom, Switzerland and countries in the European Economic Area.

"The technology promised to revolutionize filmmaking by automatically creating short movies based on written commands," reported The Los Angeles Times about the development. "Workers feared that it was a prelude to a future in which AI displaced jobs throughout Hollywood."

OpenAI, best known for the ChatGPT text bot, has made Sora available to the broader public. In the United States, consumers can use Sora with a ChatGPT Plus subscription, which costs 20 U.S. dollars a month. It can generate up to 50 videos of up to 20 seconds long. Customers can get more Sora usage, higher resolution and longer videos with a ChatGPT Pro subscription.

"AI is a major source of tension in the entertainment industry. It was a key issue in last year's strikes by actors and writers, who sought protections from the rising tech as part of their contract negotiations," noted the report.