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OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show

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Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show

#631

Post by jmull »

Well, here are some things that aren't really being disputed:

* OpenAI wanted an AI voice that sounds like SJ

* SJ declined

* OpenAI got an AI voice that sounds like SJ anyway

I guess they want us to believe this happened without shenanigans, but it's bit hard to.

The headline of the article is a little funny, because records can't really show they weren't looking for an SJ sound-alike. They can just show that those records didn't mention it. The key decision-makers could simply have agreed to keep that fact close-to-the-vest -- they may have well understood that knocking off a high-profile actress was legally perilous.

Also, I think we can readily assume OpenAI understood that one of their potential voices sounded a lot like SJ. Since they were pursuing her they must have had a pretty good idea of what they were going after, especially considering the likely price tag. So even if an SJ voice wasn't the original goal, it clearly became an important goal to them. They surely listened to demos for many voice actors, auditioned a number of them, and may even have recorded many of them, but somehow they selected one for release who seemed to sound a lot like SJ.

Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show

#632

Post by fakedang »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #560
Uehreka wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? This kind of thing is already illegal. If I’m producing a commercial for Joe’s Hot Dogs, and I hire a voice actor who sounds like Morgan Freeman, and he never says “I’m Morgan Freeman” but he’s the main voice in the commercial and the cartoon character he’s voicing looks like Morgan Freeman… well, many consumers will be confused into thinking Morgan Freeman likes Joe’s Hot Dogs, and that’s a violation of Morgan…

no, that's definitely not illegal. Voices are not trademarkable, only jingles (melody, words + tone), and of course specific recordings of voices are copyrighted. The ONLY way they get in trouble is if they claim to be Morgan Freeman.

Voices may not be trademarkable but I'm pretty sure styles and intonations are.

Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show

#633

Post by freejazz »

TuringNYC wrote: post #511
johnbellone wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intent matters. When discovery happens and there’s a trail of messages suggesting either getting ScarJo or finding someone that sounds enough like her this isn’t going to look good with all the other events in timeline. If it goes to court, they’ll settle.

>> When discovery happens and there’s a trail of messages suggesting either getting ScarJo or finding someone that sounds enough like her this isn’t going to look good with all the other events in timeline. I'm not a lawyer, but this seems unfair to the voice actor they did use, and paid, who happens to sound like ScarJo (or vice versa!) So if I sound like a famous person, then I cant monetize my own voice? Who's to…

How is it unfair to the voice actor? Is she getting sued? Is she paying damages? Is she being prevented from doing her work? No.

> Who's to say it isnt the other way around, perhaps it is ScarJo that sounds like me and i'm owed money?

It seems like you don't get the fundamental principal underlying "right of publicity" laws if you are asking this question.

Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show

#634

Post by lairv »

m_ke wrote: post #517
stavros wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I'm the opposite. I saw clips from the film after the controversy (it's been ten years since I saw the film itself) and Sky sounds nothing like Johansson to me. No amount of unverifiable "records".

1. The sky voice currently available in the app is a different model from the one they presented (one is pure TTS, the new one in GPT-4o is a proper multi modal model that can do speech in and out end to end) 2. Look at these images and tell me they didn't intend to replicate "Her": https://x.com/michalwols/status/1792709377528647995

Genuine question, what's wrong with trying to replicate in real life an idea from a SciFi movie ?

I understand that it could be problematic if OpenAI did one of two things:

- imitated Scarlett Johansson's voice to impersonate her

- misled people into believing that GPT-4o is an official by-product of the film Her, like calling it “the official Her AI”

The first point is still unclear, and that's precisely the point of the article

For the second point, the tweets you posted clearly show that the AI from Her served as an inspiration for creating the GPT-4o model, but not a trademark infringement

Will Matt Damon receive royalties if a guy is ever stuck on Mars ?

Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show

#635

Post by [deleted] »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #560
Uehreka wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? This kind of thing is already illegal. If I’m producing a commercial for Joe’s Hot Dogs, and I hire a voice actor who sounds like Morgan Freeman, and he never says “I’m Morgan Freeman” but he’s the main voice in the commercial and the cartoon character he’s voicing looks like Morgan Freeman… well, many consumers will be confused into thinking Morgan Freeman likes Joe’s Hot Dogs, and that’s a violation of Morgan…

no, that's definitely not illegal. Voices are not trademarkable, only jingles (melody, words + tone), and of course specific recordings of voices are copyrighted. The ONLY way they get in trouble is if they claim to be Morgan Freeman.

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show

#636

Post by coffeebeqn »

CosmicShadow wrote: post #628

Kind of concerning to see so much sketchbag behaviour from possibly the top AI company so consistently. Sure brings a lot of confidence in the future and sad that they can get away with it and still succeed because of the tech and their big names. It feels like it took years before people started hating Google and Tesla, but these guys wasted very little time pretending to be good. Do I still pay for and use them? Un…

Kind of makes the sama ouster seem more reasonable if this is the quality of his calls

Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show

#637

Post by junon »

danielbln wrote: post #572
junon wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this seems pretty clear to me too. The voice was also overtly horny, way more so than the others are. I say this as a gay man - I was uncomfortable listening to her talk about ISA specifications like she had a fetish for them. Seemed like an easy "pop culture" win akin to Cortana / Halo and Pacific Rim / GladOS.

As a hetero man, I didn't get the overtly homeyness out of that voice, maybe somewhat flirtatious at most. Are you maybe projecting?

How would I be projecting? Some of the tones she made were borderline moaning. I noticed it most on a poor connection, too, which made little sense.

Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show

#638

Post by dylan604 »

m_ke wrote: post #535
stavros wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which one are we saying sounds like Johansson? I'm talking about the TTS voice in the app, is everyone else talking about the multimodal voice from the 4o demos? Also, whether they *intended* to replicate Her and whether they *did* in the end are very different.

This one: https://youtu.be/vgYi3Wr7v_g?feature=shared&t=22 compare it to: https://youtu.be/GV01B5kVsC0?feature=shared&t=125

Holy Crappyness Batman! The OpenAI clip is so bad. Homeboy keeps stepping on "her" lines. So from this I come away with he's just a rude asshat that doesn't know how to socially interact with people, she's just too damn chatty and doesn't know when to shut up, or maybe it was just really bad editing? Either way, it's not an intriguing promo to me in the least.

Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show

#639

Post by 93po »

jmull wrote: post #631

Well, here are some things that aren't really being disputed: * OpenAI wanted an AI voice that sounds like SJ * SJ declined * OpenAI got an AI voice that sounds like SJ anyway I guess they want us to believe this happened without shenanigans, but it's bit hard to. The headline of the article is a little funny, because records can't really show they weren't looking for an SJ sound-alike. They can just show that those…

The article clearly disputes this. They hired and worked with the voice actor for Sky months before the first time SJ was contacted, and the voice actor used for Sky never had the movie Her or SJ's name mentioned to her a single time
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