This is hilarious. OpenAI didn’t even need to press for this voice, their technical demo was impressive enough, but they did and now it’ll cast a shadow over a pretty impressive AI advancement. In the long term though, this won’t matter.
Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
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Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#62Well, 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 Scarlett’s film.
- When Scarlett’s counsel asked for an explanation of how the “Sky” voice was created, OpenAI yanked the voice from their product line.
Perhaps Sam’s next tweet should read “red-handed”.
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#63Well, this confirms that OpenAI have been shooting from the hip, not that we needed much confirmation. The fact that they repeatedly tried to hire Johansson, then went ahead and made a soundalike while explicitly describing that they were trying to make it be like her voice in the movie … is pretty bad for them.
It’s definitely sketchy (classic OpenAI) But my question is: is what they did actually illegal? Can someone copyright their own voice?
I think this will fall under what are termed personality rights, and the answer varies by state within the US.
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#64> 4. Naughtiness > Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. This quality may be redundant though; it ma…
it seems most of the big companies try to break the rules while in the process become so strong they trade it off for what becomes a marginal fine & cost of doing business. Facebook, Uber come to mind first. This may just be the same.
Everyone let Uber get away with breaking taxi rules because those rules were only good for the people
with the taxi medallion monopoly.
(Which wasn't even the taxi drivers, although they were plenty bad enough on their own.)
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#65It's a real shame she didn't take the deal though
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#66An AI company stealing someone elses IP for profit? Unheard of.
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#67There is no source; black text on a white background. How do we know this is real?
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#68I think it’s interesting that Johansson chose to forgo substantial royalties and collaboration potential But it must feel pretty fucking weird and violatory when you spend your entire life thinking about how you are going to deliver certain lines and that’s your creative Body of work, and then for someone to just take that Voice and apply it to any random text that can be generated? I get why she wouldn’t want to let…
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> I think you're pretty naive.
I don’t think it’s about me, but since you brought it up, I try to maintain my innocence in this world. I try to be biased towards that rather than cynicism, at least… I think that’s important. Cynicism is a kind of arrogance: where you think you’ve seen it all before… but you’re wrong.
But thank you for the opportunity Your comment provides to speak to that: I do appreciate it. the chance to add clarity.
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
She choose to forego being a billion lonely guys AI girlfriend Not a bad call for someone already rich
> She choose to forego being a billion lonely guys AI girlfriend To suggest that Johansson’s only appeal is to the opposite gender (and ‘lonely’ ones at that!) I think is myopic and reductive of her impact
That is not her only appeal, she is a renowned actress.
However Sam tweeted "her" which is literally the movie where she voices the AI girlfriend. And then made a synthetic replica of her voice the star of their new demo against her wishes.
It's pretty direct what he is pitching at.
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
She choose to forego being a billion lonely guys AI girlfriend Not a bad call for someone already rich
> She choose to forego being a billion lonely guys AI girlfriend To suggest that Johansson’s only appeal is to the opposite gender (and ‘lonely’ ones at that!) I think is myopic and reductive of her impact
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