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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

#511

Post by startupsfail »

windexh8er wrote: post #497
nickthegreek wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This statement from scarlet really changed my perspective. I use and loved the Sky voice and I did feel it sounded a little like her, but moreover it was the best of their voice offerings. I was mad when they removed it. But now I’m mad it was ever there to begin with. This timeline makes it clear that this wasn’t a coincidence and maybe not even a hiring of an impressionist (which is where things get a little more w…

The thing about the situation is that Altman is willing to lie and steal a celebrity's voice for use in ChatGPT. What he did, the timeline, everything - is sleazy if, in fact, that's the story. The really concerning part here is that Altman is, and wants to be, a large part of AI regulation [0]. Quite the public contradiction. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-openai-artificial...

Most likely it was an unforced error, as there’ve been a lot of chaos with cofounders and the board revolt, easy to loose track of something really minor.

Like some intern’s idea to train the voice on their favorite movie.

And then they’ve decided that this is acceptable risk/reward and not a big liability, so worth it.

This could be a well-planned opening move of a regulation gambit. But unlikely.

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

#512

Post by iainctduncan »

sneak wrote: post #391
ncr100 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing someone's identity is indeed one of those "big things".

Impersonating someone’s voice isn’t stealing anything, and certainly not their identity.

If they are a celebrity actor it sure is.

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

#513

Post by mmastrac »

startupsfail wrote: post #511
windexh8er wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about the situation is that Altman is willing to lie and steal a celebrity's voice for use in ChatGPT. What he did, the timeline, everything - is sleazy if, in fact, that's the story. The really concerning part here is that Altman is, and wants to be, a large part of AI regulation [0]. Quite the public contradiction. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-openai-artificial...

Most likely it was an unforced error, as there’ve been a lot of chaos with cofounders and the board revolt, easy to loose track of something really minor. Like some intern’s idea to train the voice on their favorite movie. And then they’ve decided that this is acceptable risk/reward and not a big liability, so worth it. This could be a well-planned opening move of a regulation gambit. But unlikely.

It makes a lot more sense that he was caught red-handed, likely hiring a similar voice actress and not realizing how strong identity protections are for celebs.

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

#514

Post by kromem »

leumon wrote: post #296
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 think it is more then a simple tts engine. At least from the demo, they showed: It can control the speed and it can sing when requested. Maybe its still a seperate speech engine, but more closely connected to the llm.

Most impressive was the incredulity to the 'okay' during the counting demo after the nth interruption.

Was quickly apparent that text only is a poor medium for the variety and scope of signals that could be communicated by these multimodal networks.

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

#515

Post by parineum »

voltaireodactyl wrote: post #292
avarun wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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,…

> If they didn’t think they needed permission, why ask for permission multiple times and then yank it when she noticed?

Many things that are legal are of questionable ethics. Asking permission could easily just be an effort for them to get better samples of her voice. Pulling the voice after debuting it is 100% a PR response. If there's a law that was broken, pulling the voice doesn't unbreak it.

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

#517

Post by nickthegreek »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #486
tedivm wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just read the top post of the thread you're responding to- > - Not receiving a response, OpenAI demos the product anyway, with Sam tweeting “her” in reference to Scarlett’s film.

To me reference sounds more to towards omni than her voice

That’s not a gamble they are willing to take to court of law or public opinion.

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

#518

Post by owlninja »

disqard wrote: post #478
ProjectArcturis wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm beginning to think this Sam Altman guy isn't so trustworthy.

You beat me to it. Bon mots apart, he really appears to have an innate capacity for betrayal.

And he must be a helluva pitchman, given the weird fired/hired debacle. Mixed with some of the resignations that made the HN front page recently, apparently anyone leaving OpenAI signed away the right to speak. I even find it odd that their statement says they hired a voice actress, but they want to protect her privacy? Seems like a helpful alibi if true, or likely, said actress has signed an agreement to never reveal she worked with OpenAI.

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

#519

Post by ncallaway »

parineum wrote: post #509
ncallaway wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Effective Altruists are just shitty utilitarians that never take into account all the myriad ways that unmoderated utilitarianism has horrific failure modes. Their hubris will walk them right into federal prison for fraud if they’re not careful. If Effective Altruists want to speed the adoption of AI with the general public, they’d do well to avoid talking about it, lest the general public make a connection between E…

This is like attributing the crimes of a few fundamentalists to an entire religion.

I don’t think so. I’ve narrowed my comments specifically to Effective Altruists who are making utilitarian trade-offs to justify known moral wrongs.

> I will say, when EA are talking about where they want to donate their money with the most efficacy, I have no problem with it. When they start talking about the utility of committing crimes or other moral wrongs because the ends justify the means, I tend to start assuming they’re bad at morality and ethics.

Frankly, if you’re going to make an “ends justify the means” moral argument, you need to do a lot of work to address how those arguments have gone horrifically wrong in the past, and why the moral framework you’re using isn’t susceptible to those issues. I haven’t seen much of that from Effective Altruists.

I was responding to someone who was specifically saying an EA might argue why it’s acceptable to commit a moral wrong, because the ends justify it.

So, again, if someone is using EA to decide how to direct their charitable donations, volunteer their time, or otherwise decide between mora goods, I have no problem with it. That specifically wasn’t context I was responding to.

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