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

washingtonpost.com

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

#111

Post by Dylan16807 »

dorkwood wrote: post #80
squigz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for example, if a human can read one book to learn something, then it’s ok to scan millions of books into a computer system because it’s just another kind of learning. Since this comes up all the time , I ask: What exactly is the number of books a human can ingest before it becomes illegal?

This is a bit like someone saying they don't want cars traveling down the sidewalk because they're too big and heavy, and then having someone ask how big and heavy a person needs to get before it becomes illegal for them to travel down the sidewalk. It misses the point, which is that cars aren't people. Arguments like "well a car uses friction to travel along the ground and fuel to create kinetic energy, just like hu…

It's easy to explain the difference between a person and a car in a way that's both specific and relevant to the rules.

If we're at an analogy to "cars aren't people", then it sounds like it doesn't matter how many books the AI reads, even one book would cause problems.

But if that's the case, why make the argument about how many books it reads?

Are you sure you're arguing the same thing as the ancestor post? Or do you merely agree with their conclusion but you're making an entirely different argument?

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

#112

Post by mike_hearn »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55
yorwba wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If famous actors could sue over the use of a less-famous actor that sounds just like them, what's to stop less-famous actors from suing over the use of a famous actor who sounds just like them in big-budget movies? ... and that's when you discover that "unique voice" is a one-in-a-million thing and thousands of people have the same voice, all asking for their payout.

> what's to stop less-famous actors from suing over the use of a famous actor who sounds just like them in big-budget movies? Not having idiots (or ChatGPT) for judges.

That's a common retort on HN but it's information free. Judges are at least theoretically and often in practice bound to follow both written law and logic, even if it yields apparently silly outcomes. The prevalence of openly political judgements in the news makes it seem like this isn't the case, but those judgements are newsworthy exactly because they are shocking and outrageous.

If voices being similar to each other is found to be grounds for a successful tort action then it'd establish a legal precedent, and it's very unlikely that precedent would be interpreted as "whoever the judge heard of first wins".

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

#113

Post by eps »

skilled wrote: post #18

The thing that worried me initially was that: - the original report by Scarlett said she was approached months ago, and then two days prior to launch of GPT-4o she was approached again Because of the above, my immediate assumption was that OpenAI definitely did her dirty. But this report from WaPo debunks at least some of it, because the records they have seen show that the voice actor was contacted months in advance…

Unless they can clearly demostrate reproducing the voice from raw voice actor recordings, this could be just a parallel construction to cover their asses for exactly this sort of case.

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

#114

Post by seydor »

shalmanese wrote: post #67
seydor wrote: post #35

The whole thing was absurd. The voice doesnt even sound like her

That may be your opinion but we have plenty of social media conversations about it when the voice first came out 7 months ago, before any of this was a controversy, and the only two names that are consistently brought up are Scarlett Johansson and Rashida Jones for who the voice reminds them of.

Maybe because they are famous, every voice sounds like them? Regardless, Johansson has a characteristic hoarseness in her voice which is not in the robot voice

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

#115

Post by TeMPOraL »

dorkwood wrote: post #80
squigz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for example, if a human can read one book to learn something, then it’s ok to scan millions of books into a computer system because it’s just another kind of learning. Since this comes up all the time , I ask: What exactly is the number of books a human can ingest before it becomes illegal?

This is a bit like someone saying they don't want cars traveling down the sidewalk because they're too big and heavy, and then having someone ask how big and heavy a person needs to get before it becomes illegal for them to travel down the sidewalk. It misses the point, which is that cars aren't people. Arguments like "well a car uses friction to travel along the ground and fuel to create kinetic energy, just like hu…

Then again, bicycles are neither people nor cars, and yet they make claim to both sidewalk and the road, even though they clearly are neither, and are a danger and a nuisance on both.

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

#116

Post by mike_hearn »

dorkwood wrote: post #80
squigz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for example, if a human can read one book to learn something, then it’s ok to scan millions of books into a computer system because it’s just another kind of learning. Since this comes up all the time , I ask: What exactly is the number of books a human can ingest before it becomes illegal?

This is a bit like someone saying they don't want cars traveling down the sidewalk because they're too big and heavy, and then having someone ask how big and heavy a person needs to get before it becomes illegal for them to travel down the sidewalk. It misses the point, which is that cars aren't people. Arguments like "well a car uses friction to travel along the ground and fuel to create kinetic energy, just like hu…

Is that a good example? People have been arguing in court about that exact thing for years, first due to Segway and then due to e-scooters and bikes. There's plenty of people who make arguments of the form "it's not a car or a bike so I'm allowed on the sidewalk", or make arguments about limited top speeds etc.

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

#117

Post by jhbadger »

jrockway wrote: post #10

I was perusing some Simpsons clips this afternoon and came across a story to the effect of "So and so didn't want to play himself, so Dan Castellaneta did the voice." It's a good impression and people didn't seem very upset about that. I am not sure how this is different. (Apparently this particular "impression" predates the Her character, so it's even easier to not be mad about. It's just a coincidence. They weren't…

This sort of thing happens a lot, and is of course legal even if it isn't polite. I remember a decade or so ago when having "celebrity" voices for your GPS was a thing and there was an interview by the actor Michael Caine about how some company wanted him to do a GPS voice but he declined and later he found out that they then used an impersonator to make a voice that obviously was supposed to be his.

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

#118

Post by kombookcha »

gitgud wrote: post #97
Seattle3503 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a human? Whatever they can consume within their natural life.

Does natural life still count if a person is using an artificial heart? What about if they have augmentation that allows them to read and interpret books really fast? It’s not an easy question to answer…

"But what if a person was so thoroughly replaced with robot parts to be just like a computer" is just "if my grandma had wheels, she would be a truck, therefore it's not so easy to say that cars aren't allowed to drive inside the old folks home".

People and software are different things, and it makes total sense that there should be different rules for what they can and cannot do.

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

#119

Post by repeekad »

safety1st wrote: post #87
gnicholas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed — seems like they had a plan, and probably talked extensively with Legal about how to develop and execute the plan to give themselves plausible deniability. The tweet was inadvisable, and undoubtedly not part of the actual plan (unless it was to get PR).

> unless it was to get PR I think this possibility doesn't receive enough attention, there is a class of people who've figured out that they can say the most scandalous things online and it's a net positive because it generates so much exposure. (As a lowly middle class employee you can't do this - you just get fired and go broke - but at a certain level of wealth and power you're immune from that.) It is the old PT…

As a lowly middle class employee it could be interpreted externally as “representing the company” which is why you see disclaimers like “all views are my own” on some social media profiles. Sam is the company, so they can’t get mad at him, and beyond that he’s a private individual saying whatever he wants on social media without lying.

In order to sue, there need to be damages, and if they didn’t copy the voice then the rest doesn’t matter, which sam and team clearly knew and were fast to work with the news. I agree that smart people take advantage of what they can get away with, but this controversy couldn’t have turned out better for increasing brand awareness good or bad (as you say, just like trump and musk know how to do)

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

#120

Post by contrarian1234 »

I think it's really problematic that the government is protecting voice actor's careers. It's like if they disallowed cars on the roads to protect horse carriages. Clearly with the new technology a whole economic sector is gone and irrelevant over night. Now amateurs and small projects can afford to add good sounding voices to their creations. This is good news in the end

The same goes for actors and their likenesses ... just stop protecting ultra wealthy celebrities. They'll be a bit poorer, but they're going to be okay. You're just holding back progress

I can imagine in a decade some place like China which doesn't care about protecting celebrities will have movies with dozens of Tom Cruises Arnolds and Johansson's and will just be pumping out better quality content at affordable budgets. Young talented directors won't be hamstrung by these legal roadblocks

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