Sam Altman is showing us who he really is • Hacker News Board

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#351

Post by __loam » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:01 AM UTC

czl wrote: post #294

__loam wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's currently like 10 lawsuits against generative AI companies that are working through the courts including the one from Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz, one from Getty Images, one from the Author's Guild, and one from the New York Times. It should be shocking to nobody that lawsuits take time to litigate, and until the court settles the questions at hand, Open AI and its ilk are operating in a l…

> and until the court settles the questions at hand, Open AI and its ilk are operating in a legal gray area. My understanding of western law is that things are ok unless law forbids it. So they are operating in an area that under _current_ laws is ok but because of what may be at stake many wish the current laws were different and are willing to use litigation and lobby efforts to that end. This is NOT IN REPLY TO YO…

Why are we imagining a hypothetical situation in the context of talking about things that are currently happening? It's an interesting thought experiment but it's kind of irrelevant because brain implants are nowhere near that level and as far as I know, freedom of thought is already part of western law. I am not a lawyer though, I just think we can think about the actual damages to real people rather than make shit up.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#352

Post by panarky » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:10 AM UTC

throw10920 wrote: post #343

metacritic12 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I mean "incredible" and not in the good way. Someone needs to take this to Twitter / X or another platform that isn't insider controlled.

There's no "insiders" going on here. HN very intentionally doesn't favor VC stories, and it's really easy to see that because you can easily find stories and comments that are critical of VCs and YC alumni...they just have to be intellectually rewarding. This story is not. This story is boring drama. HN is not an advocacy platform. > Agreed, I mean "incredible" and not in the good way. Someone needs to take this to T…

> We don't want these kinds of stories (or comments) here

Who are you to decide what "we" want?

You don't speak for me.

The evidence of whether this community wants to see a story and to talk about it consists of upvotes minus downvotes, comments, and flags.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#353

Post by starttoaster » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:16 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #348

starttoaster wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All depends what lens you're looking through. From the perspective of advancement of the human race, AI is almost definitely a good thing. From the perspective of humans being employed at least in the short term, it's going to be very, very bad before anyone thinks to say, "maybe it's not necessary that all humans need to work if we don't have enough jobs to give them all. Maybe we need systems for allowing humans wi…

The Luddites said the same thing about textile machinery.

I already kind of replied to this rebuttal in advance in my first comment that you replied to. But I’ll refute it again a second way. Textile machinery impacted a very specific sector of work. We’re talking here about an advancement in technology threatening to substitute the creativity of humans one day. With textile machinery, other technological advancements eventually created new jobs which helped to displace the jobs that were lost. Will we manage to displace all of the creative roles we may lose to artificial intelligence at the same rate that the human workers are becoming obsolete? Time will tell. You seem very confident we will, and I wish I shared that confidence. But I’ll grant that I consider it’s possible we succeed in this. I find it wild that other people don’t consider it’s possible we fail though. All I’m saying is that we need to be mindful of it, mindful enough to notice it if it happens, as I’d argue is happening with ScarJo here, and the greater voice acting industry. Because in my opinion the overconfidence displayed to the contrary in this thread is exactly how I expect most of humanity will be blindsided by it happening instead.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#354

Post by rasz » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:18 AM UTC

>"We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson."

Scarlett should sue, discovery phase would be hilarious and very illuminating.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#355

Post by rasz » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:20 AM UTC

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.

So you really buy this bluff about using another similar sounding voice actor?

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#356

Post by Uehreka » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:23 AM UTC

z7 wrote: post #252

Uehreka wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The day of the demo, Sam posted a one word tweet “her” (the title of the movie, starring Scarlett Johansson as an AI Assistant, that people bring up when talking about the idea of AI companions). Minutes later his company debuted an AI assistant that sounded a lot like Scarlett Johansson, performing an assistant/companion role similar to hers in the movie. The association was noticed, widely discussed and definitely…

Or he could have tweeted 'her' to compare his product with the movie AI's conversational abilities and human-like interactions. It just depends on how one subjectively interprets a single syllable.

He could’ve, but did he? A judge will look at all this subjective stuff and make a decision, and they might not find that argument convincing given the other evidence on hand.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#357

Post by dopidopHN » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:26 AM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #272

a_wild_dandan wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why open source must win. I mean, it won't, but it's the only path to avoiding a silicon aristocracy.

The code for these systems is around 1000 lines. It just takes $100,000,000 in electricity costs to execute the program. Open source might not matter.

Once again, marx and the mean of production strike

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#358

Post by rasz » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:29 AM UTC

redox99 wrote: post #44

They hired a voice actor for Sky's voice. If OpenAI loses, does this mean this voice actor cannot do their job any longer, because it happens some other actor has a similar voice? Could Sky's voice actor sue a movie Johansson works in, because Johannson is copying her voice?

>They hired a voice actor for Sky's voice.

Are you sure about that? Want to bet it wont ever reach discovery?

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#359

Post by pests » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:29 AM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #312

pseudalopex wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 persona…

Do you always believe everything a corporation tells you?

If so, I have a bridge you might be interested in buying

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#360

Post by frankacter » Wed, May 22, 2024, 4:30 AM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #341

frankacter wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 comp…

The Reddit post had a link to a Washington Post article. And what you think the substance of your comment was is unclear. Most people don't use ChatGPT. Many people who use ChatGPT don't use voice generation. OpenAI's September update didn't have a demo watched by millions unless I missed something. Altman hyped the May update with references to Her. Some people thought the recent voice generation changes made the Sk…

>Washington Post article. And what you think the substance of your comment was is unclear.

You mean this?

"Each of the personas has a different tone and accent. “Sky” sounds somewhat similar to Scarlett Johansson, the actor who voiced the AI that Joaquin Phoenix’s character falls in love with in the movie “Her.” Deng, the OpenAI executive, said the voice personas were not meant to sound like any specific person."

As I stated prior, and thank you for making my point, despite being publicly available for near a year, there was minor mention of similarities with no general public sentiment.

>Altman hyped the May update with references to Her

If by "hype" you mean throwaway comments on social media that general population was unaware.

Drawing a parallel to a calming persona of an always on life assistant from pop culture in a few throwaway social media posts from personal accounts such as "Hope Everyone's Ready" isn't hyping it as Her any more than Anthropic is selling their offerings as a Star Trek communicator despite a few comments they've made on social media.

Ambiguous "some people" overstates any perceived concern and "most people don't use ChatGPT" understates how present they've been on the news.

Mobile app, which heavily emphasized voice and has "Sky" as it's default voice The ChatGPT mobile application had over 110+ million downloads across iOS and Android platforms before the May announcement.

In regards to the November announcement, yes, voice was very prominent in it with Sky as the default language. (https://youtu.be/pq34V_V5j18?si=66lEWxgteBbtKifl)