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Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

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Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#551

Post by Cheer2171 »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #535
ProjectArcturis wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case law says no. There have been several legal cases where bands have sued advertisers for copying their distinct sound. Here are a few examples: The Beatles vs. Nike (1987): The Beatles' company, Apple Corps, sued Nike and Capitol Records for using the song "Revolution" in a commercial without their permission. The case was settled out of court. Tom Waits vs. Frito-Lay (1988): Tom Waits sued Frito-Lay for using a s…

Disregarding the cases settled out of court (which have nothing to do with case law): 1) Tom Waits vs Frito-Lay: Frito-Lay not only used a soundalike to Tom Waits, but the song they created was extremely reminiscent of "Step Right Up" by Waits. 2) Bette Midler vs. Ford Motor Company: Same thing - this time Ford literally had a very Midler-esque singer sing an exact Midler song. 3) Beastie Boys vs. Monster Energy: Mon…

> Does Scarlett Johansson have a distinct enough voice that she is instantly recognizable?

It absolutely is if you've seen /Her/. It even nails her character's borderline-flirty cadence and tone in the film.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#553

Post by viking123 »

dvhh wrote: post #507
windexh8er wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about the situation is that Altman is willing to lie and steal a celebrity's voice for use in ChatGPT. What he did, the timeline, everything - is sleazy if, in fact, that's the story. The really concerning part here is that Altman is, and wants to be, a large part of AI regulation [0]. Quite the public contradiction. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-openai-artificial...

Some people might see some parallel with SBF and see how Altman would try to regulate competition without impeding OpenAI progress

I always mix up those two in my head and have to think which one is which

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#554

Post by blackoil »

chromakode wrote: post #290
avarun wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They clearly thought it was close enough that they asked for permission, twice. You seem to be misunderstanding the situation here. They wanted ScarJo to voice their voice assistant, and she refused twice. They also independently created a voice assistant which sounds very similar to her. That doesn't mean they thought they had to ask permission for the similar voice assistant.

So, what would they have done if she accepted? Claimed that the existing training of the Sky voice was voiced by her?

Maybe they have second trained on her voice.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#555

Post by bradchris »

KHRZ wrote: post #367
voltaireodactyl wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be misunderstanding the legalities at work here: reaching out to her multiple times beforehand, along with tweets intended to underline the similarity to her work on Her, demonstrates intention. If they didn’t think they needed permission, why ask for permission multiple times and then yank it when she noticed? Answer: because they knew they needed permission, after working so hard to associate with Her,…

You could also ask: If Scarlett has a legal case already, why does she want legislation passed?

She has a personal net worth of >$100m. She’s also married to a successful actor in his own right.

Her voice alone didn’t get her there — she did. That’s why celebrities are so protective about how their likeness is used: their personal brand is their asset.

There’s established legal precedent on exactly this—even in the case they didn’t train on her likeness, if it can reasonably be suspected by an unknowing observer that she personally has lent her voice to this, she has a strong case. Even OpenAI knew this, or they would not have asked in the first place.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#556

Post by Barrin92 »

tpmoney wrote: post #463
Barrin92 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we should not brand people who make qualified and substantive points as heretics, but his framing is wrong and a common abuse of the notion of the 'marketplace of ideas'. Inherent to the functioning of debate is that debates are settled , just like exchanges in a market. That's their only function. Constant debate of an ever-increasing number of talking points, by definition, renders any notion of progress impossible…

>Inherent to the functioning of debate is that debates are settled, just like exchanges in a market. That's their only function. Constant debate of an ever-increasing number of talking points, by definition, renders any notion of progress impossible. Some debates might be settled for some time, but I don't think "settled" is inherent in the functioning of a debate, and certainly not any sense of permanence even if th…

>plenty of people thought the debate over the legal status of slaves was "settled"

Are you saying plenty of people don't consider it to be settled now? Not knowing you personally I'd be willing to bet almost any amount you are not genuinely open to be persuaded by a pro-slavery or divine monarchy debate. People weren't argued into their shackles and neither were they argued out of them. Just look at the US DoI. It says "we hold those truths to be self-evident.." not "we invite you to make a pro and con list of everything every so often" and hash it out again.

When debate is productive the most important qualifier is never free, it's always reasoned and on shared moral principles. Borders are so violent exactly because they're truly "up for debate". Geopolitics is in a real state of anarchy. The logical endpoint of which is might makes right physical conflict. Mind you European borders today are not "debated" that way, and we consider that a win. If someone said "All European borders must be up for debate!" you'd be somewhat concerned.

I mean, that is precisely why US domestic debate is increasingly breaking down and violent. Not because it's not free enough but because it's too free. Because there's no ethical or rational ground underpinning it. So Sam has it exactly wrong. A community that has no shared conception of the fundamental rights of its people is likely in no condition to debate anything.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#557

Post by cm2012 »

anon373839 wrote: post #62

Well, that statement lays out a damning timeline: - OpenAI approached Scarlett last fall, and she refused. - Two days before the GPT-4o launch, they contacted her agent and asked that she reconsider. (Two days! This means they already had everything they needed to ship the product with Scarlett’s cloned voice.) - Not receiving a response, OpenAI demos the product anyway, with Sam tweeting “her” in reference to Scarle…

People hire celebrity voice impersonators all the time. You've heard a few impersonators this month probably from ads. This is such a non-issue that's only blowing up because Johannsen wrote a letter complaining about it and because people love "big tech is evil" stories.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#558

Post by worstspotgain »

MrMetlHed wrote: post #534
worstspotgain wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true. As I suggested, this case may well be open and shut. But what if it was Google's or Meta's voice that sounded exactly like Sky, i.e. without a history of failed negotiations? The amount of "likeness" would technically be identical. Are companies better off not even trying to negotiate to begin with?

It'd be fine to not negotiate if you weren't going to use a voice that sounded famous. If I were offering something that let you make any kind of voice you want, I would definitely not market any voice that sounded familiar in any way. Let the users do that (which would happen almost immediately after launch). I would use a generic employee in the example, or the CEO, or I'd go get the most famous person I could affo…

Sounds judicious. You probably wouldn't get sued, and would prevail if sued. However, the question of how much human voice space Scarlett can lay claim to remains unsettled. Your example suggests that it might be quite a bit, if law and precedent causes people to take the CYA route.

Consider the hypothetical: EvilAI, Inc. would secretly like to piggyback on the success of Her. They hire Nancy Schmo for their training samples. Nancy just happens to sound mostly like Scarlett.

No previous negotiations, no evidence of intentions. Just a "coincidental" voice doppelganger.

Does Scarlett own her own voice more than Nancy owns hers?

Put another way: if you happen to look like Elvis, you're not impersonating him unless you also wear a wig and jumpsuit. And the human look-space is arguably much bigger than the voice-space.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#559

Post by vessenes »

nabakin wrote: post #550
monroewalker wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One thing these trained voices make clear is that it's a tts engine generating ChatGPT-4o's speech, same as before. I'm not familiar with the specifics of how AI models work but doesn't the ability from some of the demos rule out what you've said above? Eg. The speeding up and slowing down speech and the sarcasm don't seem possible if TTS was a separate component

Azure Speech tts is capable of speeding up, slowing down, sarcasm, etc with SSML. I wouldn't be surprised if it's what OpenAI is using on the backend.

Greg has specifically said it's not an SSML-parsing text model; he's said it's an end to end multimodal model.

FWIW, I would find it very surprising if you could get the low latency expressiveness, singing, harmonizing, sarcasm and interpretation of incoming voice through SSML -- that would be a couple orders of magnitude better than any SSML product I've seen.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#560

Post by ocodo »

windexh8er wrote: post #497
nickthegreek wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This statement from scarlet really changed my perspective. I use and loved the Sky voice and I did feel it sounded a little like her, but moreover it was the best of their voice offerings. I was mad when they removed it. But now I’m mad it was ever there to begin with. This timeline makes it clear that this wasn’t a coincidence and maybe not even a hiring of an impressionist (which is where things get a little more w…

The thing about the situation is that Altman is willing to lie and steal a celebrity's voice for use in ChatGPT. What he did, the timeline, everything - is sleazy if, in fact, that's the story. The really concerning part here is that Altman is, and wants to be, a large part of AI regulation [0]. Quite the public contradiction. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-openai-artificial...

Altman has proven time and again that he is little more than a huckster wrt technology, and in business he is a stone cold shark.

Conman plain and simple.

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