Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

341–350 of 1001 posts

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

#341
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actress did impersonate Her though. It's not just a random "voice for your chatbot", it's that particularly breathy, chatty, voice that she performed for the movie. I would agree with you completely if they'd created a completely different voice. Even if they'd impersonated a different famous actress. But it's the fact that Her was about an AI, and this is an AI, and the voices are identical. It's clearly an impe…

> The actress did impersonate Her though. Did she? The article claims that: 1. Multiple people agree that the casting call mentioned nothing about SJ/her 2. The voice actress claims she was not given instructions to imitate SJ/her 3. The actress's natural voice sounds identical to the AI-generated Sky voice I don't personally think it's anywhere near "identical" to SJ's voice. It seems most likely to me that they not…

It sounds more like Rashida Jones than SJ to me.

I think part of this PR cycle is also the priming effect, where if you're primed to hear something and then listen you do great it.

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

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imaging this to be such a legal minefield, can't sell my own voice because a celeb sounds a bit alike as my own voice.

You can sell your voice to whoever you want. What you can't do is USE that voice in a way that seeks to mislead (by however much) people into believing it is someone else. I'm really not sure why people can't understand that it is intent that matters.

There’s a certain group of people on this site that do not want to OpenAI, Apple, and others, to have done wrong.

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

#343

It seems increasingly difficult for common people to protect their voices, especially when even Scarlett Johansson can't manage it. As a part-time voice actor with a unique voice, I'm concerned about what I should do if my voice is used without permission and the company denies it. How can I protect myself in such a situation?

I don't have helpful advice for what you asked (spend the money to get a legal expert's opinion would be my advice), but if I was a voice actor, I would see three paths: 1. Push forward legislation/regulation/lawsuits/public opinion via whatever method is available, probably unions or other collective power. 2. Embrace the technology. Maybe build a voice model of yourself, sell the license affordably and broadly to t…

This whole industry is built on top of ripped off content, appropriated from many sources without compensation. A few big lawsuits and things could take an unpredictible turn.

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

#344

This whole thing is starting to feel like another Sam Altman spotlight production. There's enough evidence to show no wrongdoing, but it was handled in a way to make people think there was a scandal. Maximum spotlight for relatively low risk. I wonder if people will get tired of being jerked around like this.

I think people will get really sick of all the drama once the paperclips start chiming.

Clippy was ahead of his/her/its time.

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

#345
post #214
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They contacted Johansson after the Sky voice was created, they didn’t create it because she declined. The voice actor isn’t a Johansson imitator, and the voice isn’t an imitation. The only similarity between the Sky voice and Johansson’s is that it’s a white American female, so by your logic a significant percentage of the US population has a case.

The jury will decide on the latter. At any rate, Altman made clear allusions to hint that they are capable of synthesizing ScarJo's voice as a product feature. The actress retaliated saying she verbally did not consent, and now OpenAI's defense is that they hired a different actress anyway. ...which means they lied to everyone else on the capabilities of the tech, which is y'know, even worse

Exactly. And regardless of the timeline outlined, when discovery happens, they’ll be a bunch of internal messages saying they want ScarJo to do the voice or find someone they can match her close enough. They went down both paths.

This will settle out of court.

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

#346
As an aside, I find it bewildering the hate for success that I see on this site. Ostensibly, the readers are either Startup founder adjacent who are dying for OpenAI's success, or Techie/intellectual types, which I assume aren't looking for monetary success and I would have thought would not be bothered by someone else going on a completely different path.

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

#347
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actress did impersonate Her though. It's not just a random "voice for your chatbot", it's that particularly breathy, chatty, voice that she performed for the movie. I would agree with you completely if they'd created a completely different voice. Even if they'd impersonated a different famous actress. But it's the fact that Her was about an AI, and this is an AI, and the voices are identical. It's clearly an impe…

> The actress did impersonate Her though. Did she? The article claims that: 1. Multiple people agree that the casting call mentioned nothing about SJ/her 2. The voice actress claims she was not given instructions to imitate SJ/her 3. The actress's natural voice sounds identical to the AI-generated Sky voice I don't personally think it's anywhere near "identical" to SJ's voice. It seems most likely to me that they not…

>I don't personally think it's anywhere near "identical" to SJ's voice. It seems most likely to me that they noticed the similarity in concept afterwards and wanted to try to capitalize on it (hence later contacting SJ), opposed to the other way around.

So your theory is that this was completely coincidental. But after the voice was recorded, they thought, "Wow, it sounds just like the voice of the computer in Her! We should contact that actress and capitalize on it!"

That's what you're going with? It doesn't make sense, to me.

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

#348
post #113
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.

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.

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

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't understand how delusional you have to be to think OpenAI wanted this to happen.

I mean clearly having Scarlett Johansson on board was plan A. Bringing the voice offline and then revealing it was a recording of someone else who coincidentally sounded exactly the same is definitely plan B or C though. I don't understand how you can trust OpenAI so much to think it was all an accident.

Read what I said again

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

#350
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You then tweet out, "look its Brad Pitt in my movie".

They never claimed it was Scarlett Johansson's voice though.

In public, other than Sam’s tweet.

Do you think nobody said anything like this in an email or Slack?

Post reply on HN