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Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

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

#281

Post by aabhay »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #229

I found the whole ChatGPT-4o demo to be cringe inducing. The fact that Altman was explicitly, and desperately, trying to copy "her" at least makes it understandable why he didn't veto the bimbo persona - it's actually what he wanted. Great call by Scarlett Johansson in not wanting to be any part of it. One thing these trained voices make clear is that it's a tts engine generating ChatGPT-4o's speech, same as before.…

I wouldn’t go as far as your last statement. While shocking, it’s not inconceivable that there’s native token I/O for audio. In fact tokenizing audio directly actually seems more efficient since the tokenization could be local.

Nevertheless. This is still incredibly embarrassing for OpenAI. And totally hurts the company’s aspiration to be good for humanity.

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

#282

Post by tomrod »

avarun wrote: post #225
ncallaway wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are we seriously saying we can't make voices that are similar to celebrities, when not using their actual voice? They clearly thought it was close enough that they asked for permission, twice. And got two no’s. Going forward with it at that point was super fucked up. It’s very bad to not ask permission when you should. It’s far worse to ask for permission and then ignore the response. Totally ethically bankrupt.

> They clearly thought it was close enough that they asked for permission, twice. You seem to be misunderstanding the situation here. They wanted ScarJo to voice their voice assistant, and she refused twice. They also independently created a voice assistant which sounds very similar to her. That doesn't mean they thought they had to ask permission for the similar voice assistant.

And... No. That is what OpenAI will assert, and good discovery by Scar Jo reps may prove or disprove.

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

#283

Post by fxd123 »

keepamovin wrote: post #26

I think it’s interesting that Johansson chose to forgo substantial royalties and collaboration potential But it must feel pretty fucking weird and violatory when you spend your entire life thinking about how you are going to deliver certain lines and that’s your creative Body of work, and then for someone to just take that Voice and apply it to any random text that can be generated? I get why she wouldn’t want to let…

> chose to forgo substantial royalties and collaboration potential

We know nothing about their offer to her. Could have just been a bad deal

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

#284

Post by gcr »

chipweinberger wrote: post #230
hn_20591249 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like sama may have put a big hole in that argument when he tweeted "her", now it is very easy to say that they knowingly cloned ScarJo's likeness. When will tech leaders learn to stop tweeting.

Or perhaps they cloned a character's likeness? Is there a distinction? Are they trying to make it sound like Her, or SJ? Or just trying to go for a similar style? i.e. making artistic choices in designing their product Note: I've never watched the movie.

That’s a weaksauce argument IMO. The character was played by SJ. Depictions of this character necessarily have to be depictions of the voice actress.

Your argument may be stronger if OpenAI said something like “the movie studio owns the rights to this character’s likeness, so we approached them,” but it’s not clear they attempted that.

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

#285

Post by gedy »

__loam wrote: post #181
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.

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?

Because this isn't training an audio model along with a million other voices to understand English, etc. It's clearly meant to sound exactly like that one celebrity.

I suspect a video avatar service that looked exactly like her would fall afoul of fair use as well. Though an image gen that used some images of her (and many others) to train and spit out generic "attractive blonde woman" is fair use in my opinion.

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

#286

Post by IncreasePosts »

spuz wrote: post #276
IncreasePosts wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't necessarily call that damning. "Soundalikes" are very common in the ad industry. For example, a car company approached the band sigur ros to include some of their music in a car commercial. Sigur ros declined. A few months later the commercial airs with a song that sounds like an unreleased sigur ros song, but really they just paid a composer to make something that sounds like sigur ros, but isn't. So mayb…

The damning part is that they tried to contact her and get her to reconsider their offer only 2 days before the model was demoed. That tells you that at the very least they either felt a moral or legal obligation to get her to agree with their release of the model.

Or, they wanted to be able to say, yes, that is "her" talking to you.

I have no idea if they really used her voice, or it is a voice that just sounds like her to some. I'm just saying openai's behavior isn't a smoking gun.

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

#287

Post by ants_everywhere »

ncallaway wrote: post #157
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?

> Are we seriously saying we can't make voices that are similar to celebrities, when not using their actual voice? They clearly thought it was close enough that they asked for permission, twice. And got two no’s. Going forward with it at that point was super fucked up. It’s very bad to not ask permission when you should. It’s far worse to ask for permission and then ignore the response. Totally ethically bankrupt.

Yes, totally ethically bankrupt. But what bewilders me is that they yanked it as soon as they heard from their lawyers. I would have thought that if they made the decision to go ahead despite getting two "no"s, that they at least had a legal position they thought was defensible and worth defending.

But it kind of looks like they released it knowing they couldn't defend it in court which must seem pretty bonkers to investors.

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

#288

Post by Last5Digits »

dragonwriter wrote: post #146
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?

If the purpose is to trade on the celebrity voice and perceived association, and its subject to California right of personality law, then, yes, we're saying that that has been established law for decades.

That's not the purpose though, clearly. If anything, you could make the argument that they're trading in on the association to the movie "Her", that's it. Neither Sky nor the new voice model sound particularly like ScarJo, unless you want to imply that her identity rights extend over 40% of all female voice types. People made the association because her voice was used in a movie that features a highly emotive voice assistant reminiscent of GPT-4o, which sama and others joked about.

I mean, why not actually compare the voices before forming an opinion?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SamGnUqaOfU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgYi3Wr7v_g

-----

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF9mrI9yoBU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV01B5kVsC0

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

#289

Post by charlieyu1 »

zone411 wrote: post #175
signal11 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI claimed they hired a different professional actor who performed using her own voice [1]. If so, I suspect they’ll be okay in a court of law — having a voice similar to a celebrity isn’t illegal. It’ll likely cheese off actors and performers though. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/05/20/openai-sa...

It probably is illegal in CA: https://repository.law.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article... "when voice is sufficient indicia of a celebrity's identity, the right of publicity protects against its imitation for commercial purposes without the celebrity's consent."

But why? Sounds like a violation to the rights of the sound actor

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

#290

Post by chromakode »

avarun wrote: post #225
ncallaway wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are we seriously saying we can't make voices that are similar to celebrities, when not using their actual voice? They clearly thought it was close enough that they asked for permission, twice. And got two no’s. Going forward with it at that point was super fucked up. It’s very bad to not ask permission when you should. It’s far worse to ask for permission and then ignore the response. Totally ethically bankrupt.

> They clearly thought it was close enough that they asked for permission, twice. You seem to be misunderstanding the situation here. They wanted ScarJo to voice their voice assistant, and she refused twice. They also independently created a voice assistant which sounds very similar to her. That doesn't mean they thought they had to ask permission for the similar voice assistant.

So, what would they have done if she accepted? Claimed that the existing training of the Sky voice was voiced by her?
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