OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by robertlagrant » Thu, May 23, 2024, 11:56 AM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #13

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…

Surely there’s some kind of difference between “voice impression for a two-line cameo in one episode of an animated sitcom” and “reproducing your voice as the primary interface for a machine that could be used by billions of people and is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.” Is there a name for this AI fallacy? The one where programmers make an inductive leap like, for example, if a human can read one book to lear…

> Surely there’s some kind of difference between “voice impression for a two-line cameo in one episode of an animated sitcom” and “reproducing your voice as the primary interface for a machine that could be used by billions of people and is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.”

There are too many differences to understand what you're saying. Is the problem too much money is in the company doing it? Fox is also pretty wealthy.

I think the pertinent question is: does having it sound like Scarlett Johansenn mean they get to access billions of people? If not, then while she might get paid out a few million, it'll be from OpenAI's marketing budget and not because of actual value added.

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

#392

Post by bnralt » Thu, May 23, 2024, 11:57 AM UTC

DoctorOetker wrote: post #375

naasking wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So its: ask Johansson, get declined, ask casting directors for the type of voice actors they are interested in, listened to 400 voices, choose one that sounds like the actor Except it doesn't sound like Johansson, I don't know why people keep saying this. At best, the voice has a couple of similar characteristics, but I didn't think for one second that it was her. Can James Earl Jones sue if someone uses a voice ac…

Also looking from the perspective of the lesser known voice actress, does Scarlett Johansson have the right to trample the lesser known voice artists future job opportunities by intimidating her previous employers? Imagine being a potential future employer of the lesser known artist, would you dare hire her in the face that Johansson's lawyers might come after you? Is this lesser known voice artist now doomed to find…

> Also looking from the perspective of the lesser known voice actress, does Scarlett Johansson have the right to trample the lesser known voice artists future job opportunities by intimidating her previous employers?

Right, it would be one thing if there was evidence that OpenAI asked the actress to imitate Johansson. But people are saying that using this voice actress at all without Johansson's permission shouldn't be legal, which is a bizarre claim. If someone thinks my voice sounds similar to a celebrities, now that celebrity owns my voice? In any other situation, everyone here would think such a standard would be completely outrageous.

(For what it's worth, I didn't find the Sky voice to sound anything like Scarlett Johannson personally)

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

#393

Post by AvAn12 » Thu, May 23, 2024, 11:58 AM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #296

omnicognate wrote: post #171

Comments full of people reading the headline and assuming that what OpenAI did here is fine because it's a different actress, but that's not how "Right of publicity" (*) laws work. The article itself explains that there is significant legal risk here: > Mitch Glazier, the chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, said that Johansson may have a strong case against OpenAI if she brings forth a l…

The sad thing is: most probably absolutely nothing will happen. These startups break laws, pay the fines and end up just fine. Remember that it was Sam Altman who proposed to change the YC questionnaire to screen applicants by incidents where they have successfully broken rules. YC even boasts about that.

> These startups break laws, pay the fines and end up just fine.

That thought process puts them in the same boat as: Theranos, FTX, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Countrywide Financial, Enron, Washington Mutual, Kidder Peabody, and many other companies which no longer exist.

So if (since?) they lack the ethical compass to not break the rules, perhaps a simple history of what happens to companies that do break the rules might be useful guidance...

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

#394

Post by skywhopper » Thu, May 23, 2024, 11:58 AM UTC

Ukv wrote: post #257

marcus_holmes wrote: post #228

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…

Who’s making those claims, exactly? That will tell you a lot about their likely veracity.

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

#395

Post by sanderjd » Thu, May 23, 2024, 11:58 AM UTC

throwaway115 wrote: post #133

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.

The evidence shows wrongdoing with ass-covering.

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

#396

Post by ZooCow » Thu, May 23, 2024, 12:00 PM UTC

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…

A plausible alternative explanation for asking Johansson:

  (1) They cast the current actor to test the technology and have a fallback.  The actor sounds somewhat different from Johansson but the delivery of the lines is similar.  

  (2) They then ask Johansson because they want to be the company that brought “Her” to life.  She declines.  

  (3) They try again shortly before the event because they really want it to happen.

  (4) They proceed with the original voice, and the “her” tweet happens because they want to be the ones that made it real.

Asking shortly before the release is the weakest link here. It’s possible they already had a version trained or fine tuned on her voice that they could swap in at the last minute. That could explain some of the caginess. Not saying it’s what happened or is even likely, but it feels like a reasonable possibility.

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

#397

Post by sanderjd » Thu, May 23, 2024, 12:00 PM UTC

chipweinberger wrote: post #121

People see what they want to see. If it wasn't for us being biased by the surrounding circumstances I don't think people would have confused their voices. Their voices are not that similar. I probably personally know people with a voice as similar to SJ as Sky's. You probably do too. The voice actress says the same: "I’ve never been compared to her by the people who do know me closely." But then suddenly a story emer…

"the surrounding circumstances" are relevant to the question.

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

#398

Post by xpe » Thu, May 23, 2024, 12:01 PM UTC

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #139

throwaway115 wrote: post #133

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

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

(1) I've become tired of the "I honestly don't understand" prefix. Is the person saying it genuinely hoping to be shown better ways of understanding? Maybe, maybe not, but I'll err on the side of charitability.

(2) So, if the commenter above is reading this: please try to take all of this constructively. There are often opportunities to recalibrate one's thinking and/or write more precisely. This is not a veiled insult; I'm quite sincere. I'm also hoping the human ego won't be in the way, which is a risky gamble.

(3) Why is the commenter so sure the other person is delusional? Whatever one thinks about the underlying claim, one would be wise to admit one's own fallibility and thus uncertainty.

(4) If the commenter was genuinely curious why someone else thought something, it would be better to not presuppose they are "delusional". Doing that makes it very hard to curious and impairs a sincere effort to understand (rather than dismiss).

(5) It is muddled thinking to lump the intentions of all of "OpenAI" into one claimed agent with clear intentions. This just isn't how organizations work.

(6) (continuing from (5)...) this isn't even how individuals work. Virtually all people harbor an inconsistent mess of intentions that vary over time. You might think this is hair-splitting, but if you want to _predict_ why people do specific irrational things, you'll find this level of detail is required. Assuming a perfect utility function run by a perfect optimizer is wishful thinking and doesn't match the experimental evidence.

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

#399

Post by avar » Thu, May 23, 2024, 12:02 PM UTC

tivert wrote: post #52

MattGaiser wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They used a different person, so it is not her voice.

> They used a different person, so it is not her voice. That doesn't matter because it's an impersonation. Ford lost, even though they didn't use Bette Midler's voice either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co .

Ford commissioned a cover of a 1958 song[1] using a singer that would clearly be mistaken for Bette Midler's existing cover of that song, as part of an advertisement campaign where they first tried to get the rights to the original songs.

If you listen to the imitation version linked from that Wikipedia article and the original 1958 you'll hear that they didn't only find a singer that sounded like her, but copied the music and cadence from Bette's version.

I think that's way past what whatever OpenAI did in this case. It would be analogous if they were publishing something that only regurgitated lines Scarlett Johansson is famous for having said in her movies.

But they're not doing that, they just found a person who sounds like Scarlett Johansson.

This would only be analogous to the Ford case if the cover artist in that case was forbidden from releasing any music, including original works, because her singing voice could be confused with Bette Midler's.

Now, would they have done this if Scarlett Johansson wasn't famous? No, but we also wouldn't have had a hundred grunge bands with singers playing up their resemblance to Kurt Cobain if Nirvana had never existed.

So wherever this case lands (likely in a boring private settlement) it's clearly in more of a gray area than the Ford case.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Want_to_Dance

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

#400

Post by JCM9 » Thu, May 23, 2024, 12:03 PM UTC

Headline presents a premise that represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the law. You don’t have to actually use the person in question to be found liable for what OpenAI is accused of doing.

Famous case here is Back to the Furure Part II where the producers hired another actor and used prosthetics to look like Crispin Glover. Crispin isn’t actually in the move but people thought he was because they used tech to make it look like it was him.

Sam tweeting “Her” is sort of the smoking gun here in showing it was their intention to make people think it was the same voice. Whether or not it actually was doesn’t matter per precedent in the law. What matters is that they tried to make people think it was Johansson. Sam’s tweet handed OpenAI’s lawyers a dumpster fire.