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

#791

Post by JoeMattiello » Thu, May 23, 2024, 5:57 PM UTC

giobox wrote: post #750

TeMPOraL wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 cle…

Who cares.

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

#792

Post by kstrauser » Thu, May 23, 2024, 5:58 PM UTC

summerlight wrote: post #782

kstrauser wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't take this as me defending OpenAI's clearly sketchy process. I'm writing this to help myself think through it. If it weren't for their attempt to link the voice to SJ (i.e. with the "her" tweet), would that be OK? - It's fine to hire a voice actor. - It's fine to train a system to sound like that voice actor. - It's fine to hire a voice actor who sounds like someone else. - It's probably fine to go out of…

There's no clear line for this. To get the definite conclusion, you will need to bring this to the court with lots of investigation. I know this kind of ambiguity is frustrating, but the context and intention matter a lot here and unfortunately we don't have a better way than a legal battle to figure it out. Thanks to Sam, this OpenAI case is clearer than others since he made a number of clear evidence against him.

Sure. And I'm not necessarily concerned about the outcome of the seemingly inevitable lawsuit. I'm more interested in calibrating my own moral compass here. If I were asked to participate in this, where would my comfort zone be?

I'll defer to a judge and jury about the legalities. As you noted, Sam gave them a lot of help.

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

#793

Post by sanderjd » Thu, May 23, 2024, 6:01 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #774

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 don't understand. If you literally use SJ's image or voice, then you're in trouble. If it's an SJ lookalike or soundalike (and you don't claim otherwise), there's no problem. Right? What's the "shenanigans?"

Your second statement may not be true, legally, and at the very least many (including the actress in question) believe it is not true, ethically.

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

#794

Post by mwigdahl » Thu, May 23, 2024, 6:03 PM UTC

zug_zug wrote: post #592

pc86 wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

If they did clone her voice, they did a poor job of it. Other than that the voice is female there's not a whole lot of resemblance in tone and timbre.

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

#795

Post by HarHarVeryFunny » Thu, May 23, 2024, 6:07 PM UTC

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…

An "investigation"?

Let's note that OpenAI didn't release the names of the voice talent since they said they wanted to protect their privacy...

So, how do you think the reporter managed to get not only the identity, but also the audition tape from "Sky"? Detective work?

An interesting twist here is that WashPo is owned by Bezos, who via Amazon are backing Anthropic. I wonder how pleased he is about this piece of "investigative reporting"?

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

#796

Post by gretch » Thu, May 23, 2024, 6:08 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #43

maxglute wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How unique is a voice? I'm sure there's enough people out ther who sounds like Johansson. There's probably some argument for voice + personality + face + mannerisms, some gestalt that's more comparable to copying the likeness "person". But openAI is copying a fictional character played by Johansson, it's not her. Do actor/esses get to monopolize their depiction of fictional characters? Especially when it's not tied t…

> “Do actor/esses get to monopolize their depiction of fictional characters? Especially when it's not tied to physical represenation.” If Annapurna Pictures (the production company that owns the rights to “Her”) made a sequel where the voice AI is played by someone else than Johansson but sounded the same and was marketed as a direct continuation, I think there would be a lawsuit. She didn’t write the script or devel…

It's entirely routine for actors and actresses to be replaced in follow up works. The industry is full of examples, but here's 1 off the top of my head:

In iron man 1, Rhodey is played by terrance howard. For iron man 2, he wanted too much money in the contract, so they replaced with with don cheadle.

Wouldn't it be a dumb world to live in if a single actor in the cast can halt the production of a new work via lawsuit because they own the character?

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

#797

Post by Beldin » Thu, May 23, 2024, 6:09 PM UTC

jackothy wrote: post #695

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, no-one is disputing that, and despite this Altman then contacts SJ again two days before release asking her to reconsider, then tweets "her" to remind the public what he was shooting for. The goal could have just been ChatGPT with a voice interface, but instead Altman himself is saying the the goal was specifically to copy "her".

He's not necessarily saying that was the goal from the start. All he is admitting with that tweet is that it is indeed (he finds it to be) reminiscent of "Her".

And if you commision an artist to draw a black-leather tight-fit clad red-head superspy in an ad for tour product, it need not look like Black Widow from the MCU.

But if it does look very much like her, it doesn't really matter whether you never intended to.

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

#798

Post by sanderjd » Thu, May 23, 2024, 6:11 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

I'm honestly surprised so many people are making this argument, seemingly with a straight face.

It would have been a pretty weak argument even without the tweet from Altman - it is not exaggeration to say it is the canonical "AI voice companion" cultural artifact in our times, but the opposite, it requires exaggeration to downplay it - but then the CEO's own marketing of the connection weakens the argument past the point of plausibility.

Surely there are better defenses available! But with this line ... phrases like "don't piss on me and tell me it's raining" and "don't believe your lying eyes" keep popping into my mind for some reason ...

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

#799

Post by FireBeyond » Thu, May 23, 2024, 6:11 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…

The reporter was quite unquestioning.

OpenAI reached out to SJ to use her as a voice actor.

Why was the casting call for non-union actors only? SJ is a SAG union member. "Non-union actors, unless you happen to be her?"

Her agent feared for her client's safety? Why? And to the point where the agent wants to stay anonymous, too?

Highly ironic, given that ultimately, a single voice statement from the voice actor could be far more conclusive of OpenAI's defense.

Altman was not "intimately involved"... well, other than the latter attempt to sign SJ two days prior to launch coming from him personally...

The agent said the actress confirmed that neither Johansson nor the movie “Her” were ever mentioned by OpenAI. Weird they'd not say anything to her when they were making these references public.

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

#800

Post by sanderjd » Thu, May 23, 2024, 6:12 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #719

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?…

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.

Counterpoint: if you think about it, yes it is.