Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice • Hacker News Board

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#181

Post by __loam » Mon, May 20, 2024, 11:47 PM UTC

gedy wrote: post #137

crimsoneer wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's clearly not her voice right? The version that's been on the app for a year just isn't. Like, it clearly intending to be slightly reminiscent of her, but it's also very clearly not. Are we seriously saying we can't make voices that are similar to celebrities, when not using their actual voice?

Normally I'd agree if this were some vague "artist style", but this was clearly an attempt to duplicate a living person, a media celebrity no less.

Why do you have an issue with them taking someone's likeness to use in their product but not with them taking someone's work to use in their product?

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#182

Post by bigiain » Mon, May 20, 2024, 11:48 PM UTC

crimsoneer wrote: post #126

not2b wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer, based on two different court precedents (Bette Midler, Tom Waits), is that the company can't do that. Companies cannot hire soundalike people to advertise their products after the person with a distinctive voice they really wanted declined. Doesn't matter if they hired a soundalike and used her voice.

There is a big, big difference between actively and intentional imitating a voice, and having a broadly similar voice though!

Yeah but...

Them trying (and failing) to negotiate the rights, and then them vaguely attempting again 2 days before launch, and fucking Altman tweeting a quite obvious reference to a movie in which SJ is the voice of an AI girlfriend - leans very very strongly in the direction of "active and intentional imitation".

Anybody trying to claim some accidental or coincidental similarity here has a pretty serious credibility hole they need to start digging themselves out of.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#183

Post by nicklecompte » Mon, May 20, 2024, 11:48 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #148

gedy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally I'd agree if this were some vague "artist style", but this was clearly an attempt to duplicate a living person, a media celebrity no less.

Is this different from the various videos of the Harry Potter actors doing comedic high fashion ads? Because those were very well received. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipuqLy87-3A

I think anti-deepfake legislation needs to consider fair use, especially when it comes to parody or other commentary on public figures. OpenAI's actions do not qualify as fair use.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#184

Post by recursive » Mon, May 20, 2024, 11:48 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #164

not2b wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that it matches up pretty much exactly with the Bette Midler and Tom Waits cases, where courts ruled against companies using soundalikes after the person they really wanted turned them down. Doesn't matter if they hired a soundalike actress rather than clone her voice, it still violates her rights.

I am guessing this is only because they first tried to hire the originals before hiring sound-alikes... otherwise, would it mean that if your voice sounds similar to someone else, you can't do voice work?

> would it mean that if your voice sounds similar to someone else, you can't do voice work?

Maybe only when the director's instructions are "I want you to sound like XYZ".

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#185

Post by reducesuffering » Mon, May 20, 2024, 11:48 PM UTC

Remember when the OpenAI board said Sam was "not consistently candid" and most people here advocated he be reinstated and how dare the board? They are speedrunning the Google "Don't Be Evil" rug-pull. Not allocating the superalignment team resources they were promised, "don't criticize OpenAI or mention there's an NDA or you lose all your equity"...

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#186

Post by smugma » Mon, May 20, 2024, 11:49 PM UTC

EasyMark wrote: post #162

crimsoneer wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's clearly not her voice right? The version that's been on the app for a year just isn't. Like, it clearly intending to be slightly reminiscent of her, but it's also very clearly not. Are we seriously saying we can't make voices that are similar to celebrities, when not using their actual voice?

Sure they could have taken her to court but right now they don't want the bad publicity, especially since it would put everything else in the shadow of such a scandalous "story". Better to just back off, let S.J. win and move on and start planning on they're gonna spend all that paper money they got with announcement of a new, more advanced model. It's a financial decision and a fairly predictable one. I'm glad she w…

She also won big against Disney. They backed down even though it appeared the contract was on their side. Iger apologized.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58757748.amp

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#187

Post by __loam » Mon, May 20, 2024, 11:49 PM UTC

option wrote: post #179

steveBK123 wrote: post #37

Incredibly stupid The wink wink at creating an AI girlfriend is so bizarre I guess we know who their target user base is

tell me. who target user base is?

Lonely losers who think computers are magic.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#188

Post by throwaway5752 » Mon, May 20, 2024, 11:49 PM UTC

Maybe this "non-profit" shouldn't be entrusted with one of the most potentially dangerous and world changing techologies in 80 years if they can't ethically handle providing a voice to their model.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#189

Post by rvz » Mon, May 20, 2024, 11:49 PM UTC

anon373839 wrote: post #62

Well, that statement lays out a damning timeline: - OpenAI approached Scarlett last fall, and she refused. - Two days before the GPT-4o launch, they contacted her agent and asked that she reconsider. (Two days! This means they already had everything they needed to ship the product with Scarlett’s cloned voice.) - Not receiving a response, OpenAI demos the product anyway, with Sam tweeting “her” in reference to Scarle…

Almost as if they knew that they cloned her voice without her permission.

Don't hear any arguments on how this is fair-use. (It isn't)

Why? Because everyone (including OpenAI) knows it clearly isn't fair-use even after pulling the voice.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#190

Post by jacobolus » Mon, May 20, 2024, 11:50 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #148

gedy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally I'd agree if this were some vague "artist style", but this was clearly an attempt to duplicate a living person, a media celebrity no less.

Is this different from the various videos of the Harry Potter actors doing comedic high fashion ads? Because those were very well received. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipuqLy87-3A

One is a company with a nearly $100 billion valuation using someone's likeness for their own commercial purposes in a large-scale consumer product, which consumers would plausibly interpret as a paid endorsement, while the other seems to be an amateur hobbyist nobody has ever heard of making a parody demo as an art project, in a way that makes it clear that the original actors had nothing to do with it. The context seems pretty wildly different to me.

I'm guessing if any of the Harry Potter actors threatened the hobbyist with legal action the video would likely come down, though I doubt they would bother even if they didn't care for the video.