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Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

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Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#241

Post by wvenable »

WheatMillington wrote: post #201
stickfigure wrote: post #123

If you get 10 random people in a room and blindly played a clip of Scarlett Johansson speaking normally (ie not lines from a movie), I'd put money that exactly zero out of 10 people could identify the speaker. It's one thing to copyright a performance or own a likeness. Owning the sound of a voice is scary territory we do not want to get into, or the estate of every singer will be suing the estate of every other sing…

If you had picked someone with a less disctinct voice you may have a point, but ScarJo's voice is very distinct. I'd bet on 10/10 people who are engaged in pop culture and 5/10 general people guessing correctly.

ScarJo's voice is very distinct but it's clear from this thread that people can't recognize that. As soon as you play both clips right after each other it's obvious that Sky isn't an imitation of ScarJo's voice because it doesn't have those distinctive features of her voice.

I think though that Sky's performance is similar to ScarJo's performance in Her. They're both playing AI voices.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#242

Post by WalterBright »

ugh123 wrote: post #67
WalterBright wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jim Carrey made his career by impersonating celebrity voices. So did Rich Little.

Did Jim Carrey provide a service for anyone to impersonate a voice?

Sure. How do you think he made money at it?

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#243

Post by nomel »

miohtama wrote: post #14
panarky wrote: post #6

Altman would have us believe it's all just an innocent misunderstanding but without actually saying so: "We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson." Is he trying to suggest the company did not try to make the voice sound like her without her permission? The statement sounds like it's written by a lawyer to be technically true while implying something that is actually false. These…

There are hundreds of people with similar voices. If any voice actor can pull the same accent than Ms. Johansson, it should be fair game, as long it was the original training material? Voices cannot be copyrighted or be exclusive, although I am sure Hollywood will try to copyright them in some point.

Here’s a side by side. I’m not hearing the similarity that everyone else is: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1cx9t8b/vocal_comp...

Oops, that sounds like a match with Rashida Jones. Here’s one one of Scarlett J.:

https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1cx24sy/vocal_...

I have a suspicion that most people with strong opinions on this haven’t actually compared Sky and Scarlett Johansson directly.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#244

Post by llamaimperative »

andrewflnr wrote: post #76
afavour wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He kind of ruined that argument when he tweeted “Her” alongside the video. Pretty clearly drawing a line between the voice and Johansson’s portrayal in the movie. Incredible, really. It would have been so easy to just… not do that.

That makes it weird, but it doesn't (itself) mean they literally used her voice. It just means they were inspired by the movie. It's not illegal to be weird.

Legally they don’t need to have literally used her voice to have broken the law, never mind violating many people’s basic sense of what’s right and wrong.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#245

Post by czl »

afavour wrote: post #51
miohtama wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are hundreds of people with similar voices. If any voice actor can pull the same accent than Ms. Johansson, it should be fair game, as long it was the original training material? Voices cannot be copyrighted or be exclusive, although I am sure Hollywood will try to copyright them in some point.

He kind of ruined that argument when he tweeted “Her” alongside the video. Pretty clearly drawing a line between the voice and Johansson’s portrayal in the movie. Incredible, really. It would have been so easy to just… not do that.

Had the film Her used someone else as the AI voice that sounded like Johansson would there be complaints about the film using a voice that sounded like Johansson? Does it matter if producers try to hire her first? Because only Johansson has that voice? Johansson does not visually show up the film Her and if not for the film credits could the voice in that film be used to use identity her from hundreds millions of other possible women? ( I had no idea who did the voice acting and would never had known if not for this news.) Now if the owners of the film Her were to request OpenAI licence a character from their film (like licencing say C3P0 character from Disney) maybe there would be a case but an actor claiming they own a natural human "voice" I think is a stretch when there are thousands of people with similar voices. And she is visually never in the film that made that AI voice famous so it could be anyone in that film with a similar voice.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#246

Post by wvenable »

metacritic12 wrote: post #157

Is something going on with the HN ratings for this submission? It was ranked #1 a few minutes ago, and now below 20. It's 190 points posted You can watch this submission sink in realtime by refreshing; it's amazing almost. See a live screengrab here: https://imgur.com/a/E3fOEvF everything with this submissions point / time ratio is ranked way higher.

HN will sink articles with a lot of rapid fire comments because they basically flame wars. It's not unusual at all.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#247

Post by llamaimperative »

avarun wrote: post #149
lenerdenator wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the voice actor was cast... why bother reaching out to ScarJo? Like, do you want to pay her fee, Sam? Because the general idea is to not pay the fee. Which is why you probably cast the voice actor before reaching out to Johansson.

Because it’s still great marketing to have Scarjo on board? That immediately returns positive ROI on the cost to hire her.

Which is also why it’s unethical to use a voice clearly designed to be mistaken for her.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#248

Post by nomel »

pmarreck wrote: post #16
panarky wrote: post #6

Altman would have us believe it's all just an innocent misunderstanding but without actually saying so: "We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson." Is he trying to suggest the company did not try to make the voice sound like her without her permission? The statement sounds like it's written by a lawyer to be technically true while implying something that is actually false. These…

It doesn't matter because Sky's voice is materially and objectively different from ScarJo's. Anyone who heard them both side by side would immediately realize this.

Comparison: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40435695

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#249

Post by Teever »

lenerdenator wrote: post #60
panarky wrote: post #6

Altman would have us believe it's all just an innocent misunderstanding but without actually saying so: "We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson." Is he trying to suggest the company did not try to make the voice sound like her without her permission? The statement sounds like it's written by a lawyer to be technically true while implying something that is actually false. These…

If the voice actor was cast... why bother reaching out to ScarJo? Like, do you want to pay her fee, Sam? Because the general idea is to not pay the fee. Which is why you probably cast the voice actor before reaching out to Johansson.

Is there any way to confirm that they actually did hire a voice actor prior to reaching out to ScarJo?

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#250

Post by nomel »

campbel wrote: post #186
kaiwen1 wrote: post #104

There are many people with voices similar to Scarlett Johansson's. If SJ is unwilling to be a voice actor for OpenAi, then why should OpenAI not find a similar voice and use that instead? SJ certainly does not have a monopoly on all voices similar to hers. Anyone in possession of such a voice has the same right as SJ to monetize it. And someone did in fact exercise that right. If you compare the Sky voice to SJ's, th…

IANAL, but I think the mistake they made was constantly referencing the movie 'Her' when talking about Sky.

Regardless of the exactly voice spectrum, the plot would apply with any flirty female voice. It was not a movie about Scarlett Johansson. It was a movie about AI eliciting a relationship.

For the “her” reference(s?), was there anything beyond the single tweet?

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