Ticker: Judge halts Kroger, Albertsons merger; OpenAI releases AI video generator Sora

A federal judge has temporarily halted a proposed merger between supermarket giants Kroger and Albertsons, an action that could scuttle the deal.

U.S. District Court Judge Adrienne Nelson issued the ruling Tuesday after holding a three-week hearing in Portland, Oregon.

Kroger and Albertsons in 2022 proposed what would be the largest grocery store merger in U.S. history. But the Federal Trade Commission sued earlier this year, asking Nelson to block the $24.6 billion deal until an in-house administrative judge at the FTC could consider the merger’s implications.

Nelson agreed to pause the merger.

OpenAI releases AI video generator Sora

OpenAI has publicly released its new artificial intelligence video generator Sora but the company won’t let most users depict people as it monitors for patterns of misuse.

Users of a premium version of OpenAI’s flagship product ChatGPT can now use Sora to instantly create AI-generated videos based on written commands. Among the highlighted examples are high-quality video clips of sumo-wrestling bears and a cat sipping coffee.

But only a small set of invited testers can use Sora to make videos of humans as OpenAI works to “address concerns around misappropriation of likeness and deepfakes,” the company said in a blog post.

Text-to-video AI tools like Sora have been pitched as a way to save costs in making new entertainment and marketing videos but have also raised concerns about the ease with which they could impersonate real people in politics and otherwise.

OpenAI says it is blocking content with nudity and that a top priority is preventing the most harmful uses, including child sexual abuse material and sexual deepfakes.

The highly anticipated product received so much response upon its Monday release that OpenAI has temporarily paused the creation of new accounts.