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

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

#751

Post by Retric »

beeboobaa3 wrote: post #678
throwawaycities wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is it illegal to hire a voice actor that sounds like Darth Vader? No. Is it illegal to hire a voice actor that sounds like Her? No. Would it be appealing to have SJ voice act for them? Sure. Does that mean it's illegal for another voice actor to (according to some) sound similar to a character from a poplar movie? No. All of these things can be true together

The issue isn’t hiring a voice actor to imitate someone, that can be fine. The issue is what you can do with the recordings after you have them.

Making a YouTube instructional view on how to imitate voices that includes clips of a film for example would be fine. Reusing the exact sounds from that YouTube video in a different context and you’re in legal trouble.

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

#752

Post by zug_zug »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #648
zug_zug wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no idea what they did, unless you work there. All you know is that somebody being sued for multi-millions of dollars (and who's trustworthiness is pretty much shot) is claiming what they did. And frankly given the frequency and ease of voice cloning, there are very few people who can say with confidence that they know 100% that nobody at the company did anything to that effect. What employee, if any, could s…

It's not (or shouldn't be) about things that have some finite probability (no matter how small) of being true, but rather about what can be proven to be true. There's no doubt a very small (but finite) probability that the voice sounds like a grey alien from Zeta Reticuli. That doesn't mean the alien is gonna win in court.

I'm not saying they'll necessarily win in court, all I'm saying is I'd wager my life savings that they intentionally created a voice that sounded like Scarlet's character from Her.

Anybody on this forum who says that it's entirely impossible or that it's conclusive that they didn't use her voice samples simply isn't being logical about the evidence.

TBH I really like the voice and the product, but I'm having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around the number of people who seem rather tribal about all this.

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

#753

Post by renewiltord »

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.

The population of this site reacts to all stories like this. It’s only Gell-Mann Amnesia that causes your mind to bend.

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

#754

Post by buu700 »

sowbug wrote: post #746
buu700 wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's probably the case. Having said that, there are also a lot of one-off side characters which use Justin's distinctive voice style, although I can't remember specifically whether that was the case in the latest season, and I'm not aware that detailed information about their internal agreements is public knowledge either way. I was speaking more about the general principle, not strictly that particular situation. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like there are some interesting overlapping legal and moral dilemmas in all of the discussions about both situations, regardless of what the specific facts of the OpenAI and R&M cases may be.

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

#755

Post by outworlder »

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…

> I guess they want us to believe this happened without shenanigans, but it's bit hard to.

Right. And the question is, did they actually used SJ's voice as part of their training data? Because there's a lot of that available given all her works.

There's a reason why they wanted 'her', specifically. What reason is that? If they could just work with a noname voice actress (likely, for far cheaper), why not just do that from the get go? It could be a marketing gimmick and maybe they wanted her name more than just the voice to add to the buzz. If it is not that, then the sequence of events doesn't make sense.

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

#756

Post by gnicholas »

dghughes wrote: post #367
gnicholas wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Midler case is readily distinguishable. From Wikipedia: > Ford Motor created an ad campaign for the Mercury Sable that specifically was meant to inspire nostalgic sentiments through the use of famous songs from the 1970s sung by their original artists. When the original artists refused to accept, impersonators were used to sing the original songs for the commercials. Midler was asked to sing a famous song of hers…

Wouldn't that apply to entertainers like Rich Little whose entire career was him doing his best to exactly impersonate famous peoples' voices and mannerisms?

If someone impersonates people but doesn't disguise/hide their appearance, there's no risk of confusing listeners about who is making the voice.

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

#757

Post by WalterBright »

soerxpso wrote: post #707
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 doesn't seem like you'd need "shenanigans" for this. Lots of voice actors are capable of doing voices that sound like other people, and some even have a natural voice that happens to sound very similar to a particular more noteworthy celebrity. AFAIU, the rights to your likeness only apply to your likeness, not to the likeness of someone else who happens to look or sound a lot like you. For a case that doesn't inv…

The attempts to sound like Mel Blanc after his death just don't sound right to me. Or maybe it's just the bad scripts.

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

#758

Post by sanderjd »

bnralt wrote: post #740
TeMPOraL wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right. Even if you think OpenAI isn’t a good place, this is an investigation by an established newspaper that refuted some of the more serious accusations (that OpenAI got a Johannson impersonator - they didn’t, that they modified the voice to sound like Johansson - evidence suggests this didn’t happen). When the reaction is “I don’t care that an investigation refuted some of the accusations”, it demonstrates someone…

> refuted some of the more serious accusations (that OpenAI got a Johannson impersonator - they didn’t

A lot of the argument here comes down to whether the article does refute that. I don't believe it does.

What it refutes is the accusation that they hired someone who sounds like Johansson after she told them she would not do it herself. That was certainly a more damning accusation, but it's not an identical one.

But in my view, it requires a pretty absurd level of benefit of the doubt to think that they didn't set out to make a voice that sounds like the one from the movie.

Maybe good for them that they felt icky about it, and tried to get her for real instead, but she said no, and they didn't feel icky enough about it to change the plan.

Do you believe the article "refutes" that? Does it truly not strike you as a likely scenario, given what is known, both before and after this reporting?

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

#759

Post by thelittleone »

Has the default voice on the mobile app changed in the last few weeks. I don't recall what voice name I had selected before, but it was amazing quality. I thought the voice was Rashida Jones [1] whose voice is in some ways similar to SJ.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0429069/?ref_=tt_cl_t_3

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

#760

Post by vitaflo »

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…

See Midler vs Ford, Glover vs Universal or Stefani vs Activision for prior cases in this area. Courts usually side with the person being imitated.
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