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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

#331

Post by hluska »

klyrs wrote: post #286
hluska wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Weird Al pay rights? I know he asks for permission to maintain his relationships with artists and to make sure he gets his share of songwriting credits (and the fees). But does he pay for rights? I’ve never seen that before and I’d love to read more.

Actually, yes, he does. https://www.weirdal.com/archives/faq/

That says he asks for permission. His new song would generate songwriter credits and they’re paid out totally differently from regular royalties. Is that what you mean by him paying for rights?

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#332

Post by hluska »

jprd wrote: post #221
hluska wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Weird Al pay rights? I know he asks for permission to maintain his relationships with artists and to make sure he gets his share of songwriting credits (and the fees). But does he pay for rights? I’ve never seen that before and I’d love to read more.

IANAL - but I think there is some sort of carve-out for parody? @sama and OpenAI are clearly not parodying "Her" - especially with that paper trail. This is a great question and I hope someone here with requisite knowledge can help.

My understanding is he doesn’t have to ask permission but does for two purposes. It’s important to him to keep good relationships with artists, and he wants to make sure that he gets songwriting credits because those are paid differently (and are often more lucrative) than royalties from recordings.

I’d love to find out if he directly pays artists for rights. That would be really interesting and would add a whole dimension to his problems with Prince.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#333

Post by nradov »

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.

I guess what we really need is super cheap fusion power or something? Or perhaps a way to easily share the cost by spreading the training load and electricity bill across millions of home computers?

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#334

Post by hluska »

czl wrote: post #255
hluska wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we assume that Scarlett Johansson is telling the truth, why would they try to resume negotiations with her two days before they launched the model? If they found a good actor whose voice sounds like Scarlett Johansson, that’s a great argument. But if they found a good actor whose voice sounds like Scarlett Johansson because the real Scarlett Johansson said no, that gets more questionable. When they did all that an…

> why would they try to resume negotiations Could they be trying to avert possible negative public perception even if they believe all they did was 100% legal? If you have ample funds and are willing to pay someone to make X easier for you does your offer to pay them imply that X is against the law? If your voice sounds like someone famous now you are prevented from getting any voice acting work? Because that famous…

I don’t know why you’re asking me those last three questions. First, I’m not a lawyer. Second, I didn’t make any claims that could make those questions relevant.

Instead, I’ll repeat my earlier claim - this was reckless. If they were trying to avoid a strong negative perception, they failed. And they failed with an actor who sued Disney shortly after they paid her $20 million to make a movie.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#335

Post by nradov »

czl wrote: post #245
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.

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 oth…

I don't know about complaints but Ms. Johansson might be able to win a civil suit in that hypothetical situation. It would depend on the facts of the particular case, particularly any evidence that the defendants acted in bad faith. I think a lot of technologists don't understand how burden of proof works in civil trials, or that there is no presumption of "innocence".

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#336

Post by hnfong »

couchdb_ouchdb wrote: post #329
SrslyJosh wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given: 1. The plot of "Her" (guy falls in love with synthesized voice, played by Johansson) 2. Altman's affinity for the film (the article says he's called it his "favorite movie") Reaching out to Johansson about cloning her voice, then doing so without permission feels like Altman is creeping on her. The sooner this bubble pops, the better.

What bubble? This isn't crypto. Have you used these tools? They aren't going anywhere.

There could be a bubble in terms of stock valuation, but the tools are definitely going to stay.

This could be kinda like the dot com bubble -- the Internet went on to become BIG, but the companies just went bust... (and the ones that strive are probably not well known)

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#337

Post by [deleted] »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #216
game_the0ry wrote: post #28

I wonder how long this thread will last on HN... How much influence does @sama have around here nowadays? For the record, I was never impressed with him - I am not aware of single consequential thing he has done or built other than take the credit for the fine work of the AI scientist + engineers at OpenAI. It feels like the company is just a vehicle for how own ambition and legacy, not much else.

The thread is rightly being knocked off by the mods because there’s zero substance here. It’s a follow-on thread (knock one) to a public uproar (knock two) about something that isn’t representative of a new phenomenon (knock three). This isn’t what HN is for.

[deleted]

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#338

Post by dang »

game_the0ry wrote: post #28

I wonder how long this thread will last on HN... How much influence does @sama have around here nowadays? For the record, I was never impressed with him - I am not aware of single consequential thing he has done or built other than take the credit for the fine work of the AI scientist + engineers at OpenAI. It feels like the company is just a vehicle for how own ambition and legacy, not much else.

> I wonder how long this thread will last on HN

Users flagged it and it also set off the flamewar detector. I don't think we'd turn the penalties off on this one because because this article is derivative of the threads HN has already had on the recent things - threads like these:

Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40421225 - May 2024 (970 comments)

Jan Leike Resigns from OpenAI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40363273 - May 2024 (391 comments)

Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40361128 - May 2024 (780 comments)

Edit: also OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40393121 - May 2024 (961 comments)

Those were huge threads!

Sometimes media articles are driven by the topic getting discussed on Hacker News in the first place. That is: major HN thread -> journalist takes notice -> article about topic -> HN user submits article -> another HN thread—but now it's a repetitive one. We don't need that feedback loop, especially because the mind tends to resort to indignation to make up for the lack of amusement in repetitive content (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...), and the earlier threads have been indignant (and repetitive) enough already.

> How much influence does @sama have around here nowadays?

Zero. He never asked for any change about anything HN-related even while he was running YC, and certainly not since then. Btw Sam was the person who posted https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/two-hn-announcements/.

> For the record, I was never impressed with him

(I'll add a personal bit even though that's usually a bad idea... I remember hearing this kind of comment about Sam going back to the Loopt days. My theory is that it had to do with pg praising him so publicly—I think it evoked a "why him and not me?" feeling in readers. The weird-ironic thing is that the complaint has only grown as Sam has achieved more. Running OpenAI through the biggest tech boom since the iPhone is...rather obviously massive. I think if Sam unifies gravity into quantum theory, brokers peace in the middle east, and cures cancer, we'll still be hearing these complaints—because they're not really grounded either in objective achievement or lack of it. It's some kind of second-order phenomenon, and actually rather interesting. At least if you aren't Sam!)

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#339

Post by dang »

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.

I was just posting about that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40437018.

If you read that and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.

Re: Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

#340

Post by rswerve »

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.

This is not the case. “ A voice, or other distinctive uncopyrightable features, is deemed as part of someone's identity who is famous for that feature and is thus controllable against unauthorized use. Impersonation of a voice, or similarly distinctive feature, must be granted permission by the original artist for a public impersonation, even for copyrighted materials.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

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