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

#711

Post by spiralk » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:29 PM UTC

throwup238 wrote: post #701

spiralk wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sky does not really sound like SJ though if you listen side by side. According to OAI's timeline, they intended to have Sky in addition to SJ. OAIs voice models including Sky predate the GPT4o voice assistant. Also: "In a statement from the Sky actress provided by her agent, she wrote that at times the backlash “feels personal being that it’s just my natural voice and I’ve never been compared to her by the people who…

> It seems like the issue is being blown out of proportion. It kinda feels like its on purpose. Someone in a previous thread mentioned that this might have been a cynical marketing ploy and I'm warming up to the theory. After they recorded the Sky VA, they figured out a whole marketing campaign with SJ to promote the voice feature. After she turned them down (twice), they released with just enough crumbs referencing…

That sounds plausible actually. The controversy has given OAI free marketing.

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

#712

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:30 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #670

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly an SJ voice was the goal, given that Altman asked her to do it, asked her a second time just two days before the ChatGPT-4o release, and then tweeted "her" on the release day. The next day Karpathy, recently ex-OpenAI, then tweets "The killer app of LLMs is Scarlett Johansson". Altman appears to be an habitual liar. Note his recent claim not to be aware of the non-disparagement and claw-back terms he had depa…

They hired the actor that did the voice months before they contacted SJ . The reaction on this site to the news that this story was false is kind of mindbending.

Yeah, but then again, I totally expected this opening the comment threads. Same happened with RMS debacle, same happened with similar events earlier, same happened on many a Musk stories. It seems that a neat narrative with clear person/object to hate, once established, is extremely resilient to facts that disprove it.

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

#713

Post by count » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:31 PM UTC

BillTthree wrote: post #677

rst wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Ford gave explicit instructions to imitate a copyrighted performance. Because that specific recording as owned by a record studio. 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 preve…

Off topic to the thread and your point, but are you confusing GNU with the Compaq BIOS reverse engineer and reimplementation? I hadn't heard this story about GNU (and what kernel)?

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

#714

Post by mise_en_place » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:32 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #670

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly an SJ voice was the goal, given that Altman asked her to do it, asked her a second time just two days before the ChatGPT-4o release, and then tweeted "her" on the release day. The next day Karpathy, recently ex-OpenAI, then tweets "The killer app of LLMs is Scarlett Johansson". Altman appears to be an habitual liar. Note his recent claim not to be aware of the non-disparagement and claw-back terms he had depa…

They hired the actor that did the voice months before they contacted SJ . The reaction on this site to the news that this story was false is kind of mindbending.

It is a curious reaction, but it starts to make sense if some of these posters are running ops for intelligence agencies. Balaji Srinivasan noted that as the US started pulling out of foreign wars, the intelligence apparatus would be turned inward domestically.

Some of it can also be attributed to ideological reasons, the d/acc crowd for example. Please note I am not attacking any individual poster, but speculating on the reasons why someone might refuse to acknowledge the truth, even when presented evidence to the contrary.

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

#715

Post by vagab0nd » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:33 PM UTC

I'm pretty confused throughout the whole thing, because I never got to hear the damn voice that sounded so similar to SJ! The demo voice was overly dramatic, and sounded nothing like her IMO. I've searched everywhere and couldn't find the "Sky" voice (I guess because they took it down?).

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

#716

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:40 PM UTC

giobox wrote: post #663

93po wrote: post #639

Earlier 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

The Movie Her predates all of this by years, and Sam Altman even tweeted "her"! The OpenAI team are clearly well aware of Scarlett's voice (its inconceivable the majority of the team at OpenAI haven't at least seen part of the film that almost defined their industry). The movie predates all of this by years - of course they knew. When auditioning actors "months before" they can still look for an actor who guess what?…

> its inconceivable the majority of the team at OpenAI haven't at least seen part of the film that almost defined their industry

Let's not exaggerate. It was a somewhat popular movie, yes, but not really defining and far from the first example of conversational AI speaking woman's voice. There are plenty of examples in movies and TV shows.

If anything, the seminal work in this space is Star Trek casting Majel Barrett-Roddenberry as the voice of computer systems with conversational interfaces, as early as 1987 (or 1986, if she had that role in the Original Series; I don't remember those episodes too well), all the way to ~2008 (or to 2023, if you count post-mortem use of her voice). That is one distinctive voice I'd expect people in OpenAI to be familiar with :).

Also, I can't imagine most people knowing, or caring, who voiced the computer in Her. It's not something that most people care about, especially when they're more interested in the plot itself.

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

#717

Post by buu700 » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:41 PM UTC

spiralk wrote: post #683

jmull wrote: post #631

Well, here are some things that aren't really being disputed: * OpenAI wanted an AI voice that sounds like SJ * SJ declined * OpenAI got an AI voice that sounds like SJ anyway I guess they want us to believe this happened without shenanigans, but it's bit hard to. The headline of the article is a little funny, because records can't really show they weren't looking for an SJ sound-alike. They can just show that those…

Sky does not really sound like SJ though if you listen side by side. According to OAI's timeline, they intended to have Sky in addition to SJ. OAIs voice models including Sky predate the GPT4o voice assistant. Also: "In a statement from the Sky actress provided by her agent, she wrote that at times the backlash “feels personal being that it’s just my natural voice and I’ve never been compared to her by the people who…

I'm also curious, legally speaking, is it an issue even if Sky's actress does sound like Scarlett? What if OpenAI admits they intentionally chose someone who sounded like Scarlett? Does it matter whether she was using her natural speaking voice or intentionally mimicking Scarlett's voice and mannerisms?

This seems similar to the latest season of Rick and Morty. Whether justified or not in that particular case, it rubs me the wrong way a bit in principle to think that a production can fire someone only to hire someone else to do a near-perfect copy of their likeness. If (as in the OpenAI case) they'd gone further and trained an AI on the impressions of Justin's voice, would that have been considered an AI impersonation of Justin with extra steps?

All of which is to say, this seems like a pretty interesting legal question to me, and potentially broader than just AI.

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

#718

Post by olddustytrail » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:41 PM UTC

JCharante wrote: post #355

nicce wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not about the voice. Rather using the fame of known actress to boost the product. If your inner motive is to sound like her because she is well-known, differences in voice does not matter much.

The voice was called Sky and OpenAI wasn't using her likeness to promote the voice or product. She isn't that well known, I didn't even know she was in Her. There's 1 billion English speakers, there are going to be voice overlaps.

Not that well known? She's one of the most famous actresses in the world! Seriously, go look at her Wikipedia page.

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

#719

Post by skybrian » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:42 PM UTC

giobox wrote: post #663

93po wrote: post #639

Earlier 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

The Movie Her predates all of this by years, and Sam Altman even tweeted "her"! The OpenAI team are clearly well aware of Scarlett's voice (its inconceivable the majority of the team at OpenAI haven't at least seen part of the film that almost defined their industry). The movie predates all of this by years - of course they knew. When auditioning actors "months before" they can still look for an actor who guess what?…

Sure, it could have happened, but it seems we don’t have evidence either way.

Tweeting “her” months later doesn’t prove anything. That Tweet might superficially look like evidence of intent, but if you think about it, it’s not.

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

#720

Post by Phemist » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:43 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #650

qarl wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. And that's extremely hard to believe. A discovery search of the internal emails should give us a definitive answer.

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…

Out of all journalistic outlets, WaPo, being owned by Bezos, has the least incentive to roast OpenAI in this case.

Wouldn't it be nice if Bezos/Amazon could make Alexa sound like a voice actress that sounds a lot like ScarJo without repercussions? First step is to shape the public opinion.