Earlier quoted context omitted.
To find this "extremely hard to believe", you have to argue that this story, which has multiple sources unaffiliated with OpenAI, contemporaneous documentary evidence, and is written by a reporter with every incentive in the world to roast OpenAI, is directly wrong about facts plainly reported in the story. I think you have to want this story to be wrong to think it's wrong. It's a tough beat! Everyone was super sure…
I'm sorry friend, I don't know what to tell you. I find it extremely hard to believe.
OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show
671–680 of 1001 posts
Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show
#672Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article clearly disputes this. They hired and worked with the voice actor for Sky months before the first time SJ was contacted, and the voice actor used for Sky never had the movie Her or SJ's name mentioned to her a single time
That doesn't mean anything. They could have been and were likely developing the process and technology while having Johansson in mind the whole time. > never had the movie Her or SJ's name mentioned to her a single time How do you know that?
>The agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to assure the safety of her client, said the actress confirmed that neither Johansson nor the movie “Her” were ever mentioned by OpenAI.
Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show
#673Earlier quoted context omitted.
Likeness rights are a real thing, and it's not out there to have infringed on them by going to a famous person to use their likeness, getting denied, then using another actor telling them to copy the first actor's likeness. This is why all Hollywood contracts have actors signing over their likeness in perpetuity now; which was one of the major sticking points of the recent strikes.
>> "then using another actor telling them to copy the first actor's likeness " Assumes facts not in evidence
Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show
#674Hiring a different voice artist might show that they didn't use deepfake technology to imitate Johansson’s voice, but it absolutely doesn't prove that the voice isn't an imitation and one for which they would have been liable under existing law.
exactly . when you cover an artist on your show, you have to take permission first. I am not a copyright expert, but I do own a few of Weird Al albums and he is very diligent about obtaining permissions from artists he is covering.
It’s not a copyright issue, it’s a right of publicity issue, a completely separate legal issue (conceptually, more trademark-like than copyright-like, but distinct from either.)
Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show
#675Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sam Altman forced her to represent a product, forever. That’s fucked up. He never mentioned her by name, he pointed out how the AI demo OpenAI created is similar to the _character_ from Her. If you don't want to be linked to a character forever, maybe don't act? It's just such a ridiculous statement to make. Like making an argument that no one should talk about Obi Wan because Alec Guinness didn't like being recogn…
> He never mentioned her by name, he pointed out how the AI demo OpenAI created is similar to the _character_ from Her. And yet Kaparthy (a co-founder of OpenAI) did mention her by name as "the killer app of LLMs", less than 24 hours from the announcement. > The killer app of LLMs is Scarlett Johansson. https://x.com/karpathy/status/1790373216537502106
Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show
#676The 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…
Why would they have taken down the voice if they were operating on a level of truth in their favor?
Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show
#677Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the mannerisms of a performance something that's copyrightable though. It sounded like they used a voice actor who was instructed to speak with a similar intonation as Her, but Scarlet Johansson's voice is more raspy, whereas Sky just sounds like a generic valley girl.
For a case to the contrary: Midler v. Ford -- a case in which Ford hired one of Bette Midler's ex-backup singers to duplicate one of her performances for an ad (after trying and failing to get Midler herself). Ford never said this was actually Midler -- and it wasn't -- but Midler still sued and won. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/849...
If you can describe a woman's voice and mannerisms and the result sounds similar to a copyrighted performance, that is natural circumstance.
If you want an example of purposefully imitating something with a copyright, look at GNU. Anyone who looked at the UNIX code was realistically prevented from writing their own kernel with similar functions. But if a handful of folks describe what the kernel ended up doing and some guy in his own head comes up with some C code and assembly to do end up with the same high level functions, well thats just fine, even if you include the original name.
The details matter. There is absolutely enough vocal difference, it doesn't take an audiologist to hear the two voices do sound different but very close. It would not be hard for the producers to describe "a" voice and that description would overlap heavily with ScarJo, and wow the marketing team reached out to see if she would attempt to fill the existing requirements. When she said no, they found a suitable alternative. If the intent was to have ScarJo do the voice and she said no and they did it anyways, thats illegal.
Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show
#678Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is just Scarlett Johansson trying to destroy some small voice actor. I greatly dislike what OpenAI is doing, but this is just ridiculous.
Scarlett Johansson is apparently so devious she managed to get OpenAI to reach out to her to license her voice and likeness. She even set up the CEO by having him directly negotiate with her, which I’m sure he also did with the alleged small voice actor. Then she perfected her scheme by having that same CEO publicly tweet “her” - timed with the release of the voice product - referencing JS’s movie of the same name wh…
Re: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show
#679As soon as Scarlett Johansson said "no" (which I assume is true), OpenAI needed to go in very different directions to avoid anything that might look bad. It doesn't matter if they used a sound-alike or built a model from actual source material; anything would look bad. It looks especially bad when the company insists chatbot outputs are synthesized and not copyright infringement.