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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

#371

Post by howbadisthat »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #168
bhhaskin wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But where it will get murky is people sound like other people. Most voices are hardly unique. It will be interesting to see where this lands.

It isn't murky, because law is about intent more than result. It doesn't matter if they hired someone who sounds like Scarlett, it matters if they intended to do so . If they accidentally hired someone who sounds identical, that's not illegal. But if they intended to, even if it is a pretty poor imitation, it would be illegal because the intent to do it was there. A court of law would be looking for things like email…

Under what legal theory is intending to do something which is legal (hiring a person that has a voice you want) becomes illegal because there is another person who has a similar voice?

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

#372

Post by [deleted] »

not2b wrote: post #113
ThinkBeat wrote: post #75

SJ mentions deep fakes. It is quite possible that OpenAI has synthesized the voice from SJ material. However If OpenAI can produce the woman who did is the current voice, and she has a voice nearly identical that of SJ would that mean OpenAI had done something wrong? Does SJ since she is a celebrity hold a "patent" right to sound like her. The more likely scenario is that they have hired a person and told her to try…

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.

[deleted]

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

#373

Post by cjbgkagh »

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…

AFAIK they yanked it pretty quickly and the subsequent scandal has widely informed people that it was not authorized by Scarlett Johansson. So while it was clearly a violation resulting from a sequence of very stupid decisions by OpenAI, I am not sure if there would be much in the way of damages.

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

#374

Post by cowsup »

Last5Digits wrote: post #288
dragonwriter wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

> 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.

Whether you think it sounds like her or not is a matter of opinion, I guess. I can see the resemblance, and I can also see the resemblance to Jennifer Lawrence and others.

What Johannson is alleging goes beyond this, though. She is alleging that Altman (or his team) reached out to her (or her team) to lend her voice, she was not interested, and then she was asked again just two days before GPT-4o's announcement, and she rejected again. Now there's a voice that, in her opinion, sounds a lot like her.

Luckily, the legal system is far more nuanced than just listening to a few voices and comparing it mentally to other voices individuals have heard over the years. They'll be able to figure out, as part of discovery, what lead to the Sky voice sounding the way it does (intentionally using Johannson's likeness? coincidence? directly trained off her interviews/movies?), whether OpenAI were willing to slap Johannson's name onto the existing Sky during the presentation, whether the "her" tweet and the combination of the Sky voice was supposed to draw the subtle connection... This allegation is just the beginning.

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

#375

Post by tjmc »

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #316
npunt wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people cheat on (relatively) small things, it's usually an indication they'll cheat on big things too

How did they even cheat here? OpenAI did nothing wrong. The movie industry does the same thing all the time. If an actor/actress says no they you find someone else who can play the same role.

Nothing? If you're acting like the sea witch in "The Little Mermaid" you're probably doing something wrong.

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

#376

Post by minimaxir »

KHRZ wrote: post #367
voltaireodactyl wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be misunderstanding the legalities at work here: reaching out to her multiple times beforehand, along with tweets intended to underline the similarity to her work on Her, demonstrates intention. If they didn’t think they needed permission, why ask for permission multiple times and then yank it when she noticed? Answer: because they knew they needed permission, after working so hard to associate with Her,…

You could also ask: If Scarlett has a legal case already, why does she want legislation passed?

To prevent it from happening again, with more legal authority than a legal precedent.

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

#377

Post by spullara »

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…

The voice was shipped last september.

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

#378

Post by llamaimperative »

diego_sandoval wrote: post #370
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.

It's also very easy to say that they were inspired by the concept of the movie, but the voice is different.

Sure if they hadn’t contacted her twice for permission, including 2 days before launch.

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

#379

Post by gibbitz »

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.

Are we surprised by this bankruptcy. As neat as AI is, it is only a thing because the corporate class see it as a way to reduce margins by replacing people with it. The whole concept is bankrupt.

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

#380

Post by brown9-2 »

minimaxir wrote: post #262
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…

Given the timeline, I’m still baffled Sam Altman tweeted “her.” That just makes plausible deniability go away for a random shitpost.

Some people are just addicted to posting
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