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

washingtonpost.com

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

#741

Post by plorg »

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…

It probably is worth paying attention to the water WaPo is carrying for OpenAI here next to their publisher's announcement about prioritizing the use of AI in their newsrooms.

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

#742

Post by gosub100 »

pc86 wrote: post #553
dbreunig wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This shows how bad it is. If you're proactively sharing a package of docs with the Washingington Post, you're toast. Altman's outreach, his tweet, and the thousands of tweets and comments talking about how similar Sky is to ScarJo is enough to win the case in California.

Then we can add this to the long list of insane lawsuits going the wrong way in California. They asked SJ, she said no. So they went to a voice actor and used her. Case closed, they didn't use SJ's voice without her permission. That doesn't violate any law to any reasonable person.

I predict the case will have parallels with Queen's lawsuit against Vanilla Ice: the two songs (under pressure and ice ice baby) are "different" in that one has an extra beat, yet it's an obvious rip-off of the former.

Perhaps merely having person A sound like person B isn't enough, but combined with the movie and AI theme it will be enough. Anyway I hope he loses.

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

#743

Post by stale2002 »

freejazz wrote: post #646
Pedro_Ribeiro wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if that's just the VA's natural voice? Must she stop doing VA?

She isn't the issue, she isn't being sued.

She absolutely is being deplatformed and her rights are violated.

If every customer who hires her gets sued, that is basically the same as making it illegal for her to be a VA.

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

#744

Post by not2b »

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 was not claimed that they cloned ScarJo's voice. They hired a soundalike when they couldn't get the person they wanted. Use or lack of use of AI is irrelevant. As I said before, both Bette Midler and Tom Waits won similar cases.

Since they withdrew the voice this will end, but if OpenAI hadn't backed off and ScarJo sued, there would be discovery, and we'd find out what her instructions were. If those instructions were "try to sound like the AI in the film Her", that would be enough for ScarJo to win.

I know that the Post article claims otherwise. I'm skeptical.

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

#745

Post by Joel_Mckay »

While legally there is probably no recourse, the business goodwill with consumers is gone.

Scarlett Johansson has a lot of fans, and they will now see your company as a problem.

Legally you might get a pass... but business wise it is a big Nope... nerd hubris strikes again. =)

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

#746

Post by sowbug »

buu700 wrote: post #717
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…

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 rub…

The fired actor would have already signed away any claim to the character's likeness. The likeness the company cares about is that of the character, not of the actor portraying the character. The actor never owned the character, so the actor shouldn't be miffed that someone else gets the part for future performances.

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

#747

Post by Alupis »

summerlight wrote: post #729
tptacek wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My guess: Sam wanted to imitate the voice from Her and became aware of Midler v. Ford cases so reached out to SJ. He probably didn't expect her decline. Anyway, this prior case tells that you cannot mimic other's voice without their permission and the overall timeline indicates OpenAI's "intention" of imitation. It does not matter if they used SJ's voice in the training set or not. Their intention matters.

I cannot read the article because of it's paywall - is there actual proof OpenAI reached out to Johansson - or is it just being alleged by her lawyers?

It seems she has every reason to benefit from claiming Sky sounded like her even if it was a coincidence. "Go away" payments are very common, even for celebrities - and OpenAI has deep pockets...

Even so, if they got a voice actor to impersonate or sound similar to Johansson, is that something that's not allowed?

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

#748

Post by sanderjd »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #712
tptacek wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I also see this dynamic on these same kinds of threads, but what I see is that one side is very sure that the facts disprove something, and the other side is very sure they don't. I've been on both sides of this, on different questions. I don't think there is anything weird about this, it's just a dispute over what a given fact pattern demonstrates. It's totally normal for people to disagree about that. It's why we put a fairly large number of people on a jury... People just see different things differently.

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

#750

Post by giobox »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #716
giobox wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If "her" wasn't the canonical example of a near-future AI assistant in a film, why then does Sam bother to tweet the single word "her" following launch? I think that film is far more influential than you give it credit for here.

Everyone in tech who saw that tweet knew what it meant - a single word. The tweet doesn't even require additional context or explanation to almost anyone in this industry.

There is also a clear difference in the behaviour of the "computer" in Star Trek vs "her" - what OpenAI shipped is far more like the personality of "her" than the much more straight-laced examples in Star Trek, where the computer was virtually devoid of emotional-sounding responses at all.

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