Sora is a text-to-video generative AI model, released by OpenAI in February 2024. The model is trained to generate videos of realistic or imaginative scenes from text instructions and show potential in simulating the physical world. Based on public technical reports and reverse engineering, this paper presents a comprehensive review of the model's background, related technologies, applications, remaining challenges, and future directions of text-to-video AI models. We first trace Sora's development and investigate the underlying technologies used to build this "world simulator". Then, we describe in detail the applications and potential impact of Sora in multiple industries ranging from film-making and education to marketing. We discuss the main challenges and limitations that need to be addressed to widely deploy Sora, such as ensuring safe and unbiased video generation. Lastly, we discuss the future development of Sora and video generation models in general, and how advancements in the field could enable new ways of human-AI interaction, boosting productivity and creativity of video generation.

翻译：Sora是由OpenAI于2024年2月发布的文本生成视频生成式AI模型。该模型经过训练，能够根据文本指令生成逼真或富有想象力的场景视频，并展现出模拟物理世界的潜力。基于公开技术报告与逆向工程，本文对文本生成视频AI模型的背景、相关技术、应用、现存挑战及未来方向进行了全面综述。我们首先追溯Sora的发展历程，探究构建该“世界模拟器”所依赖的底层技术；随后详细阐述了Sora在电影制作、教育、市场营销等多个行业的应用与潜在影响；接着讨论了大规模部署Sora需解决的主要挑战与局限，例如确保安全且无偏见的视频生成；最后，展望了Sora及视频生成模型整体的未来发展，并指出该领域的进步如何催生人机交互新形式，提升视频生成的生产力与创造力。