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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

#311

Post by gamblor956 »

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…

OpenAI caved immediately because they knew they would lose a lawsuit and be looking at a minimum of an 8 figure payout.

Voice impersonation has been a settled matter for decades. It doesn't matter that they used another actress. What matters is that they tried to pass the voice off as SJ's voice several times.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#312

Post by sillysaurusx »

pseudalopex wrote: post #282
sillysaurusx wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the other way around. The contortionists are on the other side of the issue. We’re talking about OpenAI hiring someone to use their natural speaking voice . As movies say, any similarity to existing people is completely coincidental from a legal perspective. From a moral perspective, I can’t believe that people are trying to argue that someone’s voice should be protected under law. But that’s a personal opinion.

> We’re talking about OpenAI hiring someone to use their natural speaking voice. How do you know?

They said so, and it’s what I would have done. I have no reason not to believe them.

Unfortunately a commenter pointed out that there’s legal precedent for protecting people’s voices from commercial usage specifically (thanks to a court case from four decades ago), so I probably wouldn’t have tried this. The cost of battling it out in the legal system is outweighed by the coolness factor of replicating Her. I personally feel it’s a battle worth winning, since it’s bogus that they have to worry about some annoyed celebrity, and your personal freedoms aren’t being trodden on in this case. But I can see why OpenAI would back down.

Now, if some company was e.g. trying to commercialize everybody’s voices at scale, this would be a different conversation. That should obviously not be allowed. But replicating a culturally significant voice is one of the coolest aspects of AI (have you seen those recreations of historical voices from other languages translated into English? If not, you’re missing out) but that’s not what OpenAI did here.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#313

Post by lenerdenator »

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.

I mean, I guess? I don't know how many people base their choice in AI model or application on the voice, but maybe I'm just not privy to that.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#314

Post by imgabe »

hot_gril wrote: post #171
imgabe wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You reach out to someone to do a job, they decline to take the job, you find someone else who can do the job in a similar way. You do not need the consent of the person who declined the job to hire someone else. I'm sure lots of movies have tried to cast Scarlett Johanson for a role and she declined, so they went with another actress who looked similar. Should she sue them too?

There's a whole market of people who look sorta like famous people, hired for B-rate movies.

There was an entire industry of people just impersonating Elvis. I don't think they needed his (or his estate's) permission to do that other than paying royalties to the songwriters to perform the songs.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#315

Post by pseudalopex »

frankacter wrote: post #291
dragonwriter wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Setting a precedent that if your natural voice sounds similar to a more famous actor precludes you from work would be a terrible precedent to set. Yes, but literally no one anywhere is suggesting that the voice actress used would be banned from work because of any similarity between her voice and Johansson's; that’s an irrelevant strawman. Some people are arguing that there is considerable reason to believe that th…

>Yes, but literally no one anywhere is suggesting that the voice actress used would be banned from work because of any similarity between her voice and Johansson's; that’s an irrelevant strawman It's not. The original comment in this chain was drawing parallel to a lawsuit in which someone intentionally took steps to impersonate an actor. This situation is a voice actor using their "natural voice" as a source of work…

> This situation is a voice actor using their natural voice as a source of work.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40435388

> Sky voice has been around for a very long time in the OpenAI app dating back to early 2023. No one was drawing similarities or crying foul and decrying how it "sounds just like Scarlett" ..

No.[1]

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/177v8wz/i_have_a_r...

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#316

Post by wvenable »

zemo wrote: post #296
wvenable wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is relevance of that to this discussion on whether OpenAI stole Scarlett Johansson's voice?

you’re using “he loves the movie” as some sort of defense, when the movie is a pretty standard sci fi cautionary tale. You know the saying: sci-fi author: I wrote about the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale tech bros: Finally we have built the Torment Nexus from beloved sci fi story “Do not build the Torment Nexus” Enjoying a story is not justification for recreating any artifact that occurs within the story. Her is…

This is real life not fiction. Perhaps we shouldn't crucify people for this sort of vague association.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#317

Post by frankacter »

pseudalopex wrote: post #315
frankacter wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes, but literally no one anywhere is suggesting that the voice actress used would be banned from work because of any similarity between her voice and Johansson's; that’s an irrelevant strawman It's not. The original comment in this chain was drawing parallel to a lawsuit in which someone intentionally took steps to impersonate an actor. This situation is a voice actor using their "natural voice" as a source of work…

> This situation is a voice actor using their natural voice as a source of work. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40435388 > Sky voice has been around for a very long time in the OpenAI app dating back to early 2023. No one was drawing similarities or crying foul and decrying how it "sounds just like Scarlett" .. No.[1] [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/177v8wz/i_have_a_r...

While you're right I should have chosen my words more carefully, a random reddit post with 68 upvotes doesn't really dispute the substance of my comment.

OpenAI has been plastered across the news cycles for the last year, most of that time with Sky as the default voice. There was no discernable upheaval or ire in the public space suggesting the similarities of the voice in any meaningful public manner until this complaint was made.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#318

Post by Teever »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #280
Teever wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

ScarJo claims they reached out to her just 2 days prior to demoing the voice that sounded like her, and (I believe) OpenAI outright claimed that they hired a different voice actor, though they didn't admit that they instructed her to try to sound like Scarlett's character in Her, which could make or break Scarlett's case.

How can we tell if the model was trained exclusively on data from the voice actor and not ScarJo.

The hiring of the voice actor could be complete misdirection for all we know.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#319

Post by FireBeyond »

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.

The whole "Her" thing, and the fact that even Johansson's family and friends couldn't tell it apart are somewhat telling.

Or Altman could reveal the identity of the voice actress OpenAI did use. I'm sure that will happen, and remove all doubt...

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#320

Post by FireBeyond »

yreg wrote: post #107
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.

> He kind of ruined that argument when he tweeted "Her" Why? The grandparent is not saying it's coincidence. Why is it not okay to hire someone who has a voice similar to celebrity X who you intentionally want to immitate? I mean if you don't actually mislead people to believe that your immitation is actually X - which would be obviously problematic?

Alright then, the solution is simple. All he has to do is name the actress that OpenAI -did- hire for the voice work, right? That would put any doubt to rest.
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