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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

#841

Post by kleiba »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #448
kleiba wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is that the point? Here is a relevant precedence, for instance, that may or may not change your mind: Tom Waits is a singer known for his raspy singing voice. Back in the late 1980s, Frito-Lay, Inc., the makes of Doritos, thought it was a great idea to run an ad in which the music had the atmosphere and feel of a Tom Waits song. Except the professional singer they hired for that got the job done a bit too well: t…

>Given the fact that Johansson was initially contacted by OpenAI to provide her voice and declined This order is wrong according to the article, the VA was contracted before ever reaching out to SJ.g Additionally here is a relevant anecdote, for instance, that may or may not change your mind? >In a statement from the Sky actress provided by her agent, she wrote that at times the backlash “feels personal being that it…

> This order is wrong according to the article, the VA was contracted before ever reaching out to SJ.g

Be that as it may, but it's clear that OpenAI had early on considered a her-like voice for their product. According to OpenAI, they started with over 400 candidate voices and narrowed them down to [1]. I find it would be quite the amazing if the one that sounded very close to the her voice was chosen purely by coincidence - and then they went:

- Wait a minute, you know what she sounds like? Have you ever seen that movie Her?

- Man, you're right, it does sound quite like that voice. Wasn't that Scarlett Johansson in the movie?

- Yeah, I think so.

- Whoa, whoa, tell you what: why don't we hire Scarlett Johansson directly?

- After we just went through 400 voices to select these five?

- So what? She's a star! Think of the marketing impact! "OpenAI has developed real-life her"

- Cool, dude! But what are the odds that Johansson would do that?

- I guess there's only one way to find out...

> Yeah, man, you're right. Let's do it!

I wonder if that was how it happened...

> It would suck to be blacklisted from your career

That's true. Is that's what's happening?

[1] https://openai.com/index/how-the-voices-for-chatgpt-were-cho...

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

#843

Post by paulddraper »

kopecs wrote: post #802
paulddraper wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

> If it's an SJ lookalike or soundalike (and you don't claim otherwise), there's no problem. This isn't true. At least with respect to "soundalike" see, e.g., Waits v. Frito-Lay 978 F.2d 1093 and Midler v. Ford Motor Co. 849 F.2d 460.

Lol what a joke.

The famous person "owns" the sound of their voice, and the non-famous person does not.

Get wrecked peasants.

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

#844

Post by sanderjd »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #769
sanderjd wrote: post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

It's unhelpful because the massive comment chains don't bring anything to the "discussion" (this is literal celebrity gossip so I'm having a hard time using 'discussion', but wait this isn't Reddit how could I forget, we're the enlightened HN.) It just devolves into ones' priors: do you hate or love OpenAI and sama for unrelated reasons. It's just a sports bar with the audience a few drinks in.

I mostly agree with you, but would ask: Why are you here, reading this thread? This isn't, like, a thread about something interesting that is being tragically drowned out by all this gossip. It's just an entirely bad thread that we should (and probably do) all feel bad about getting sucked into.

But the tiny sliver of disagreement I have with "this is a bad thing to discuss here and we should all feel bad" is that some people who frequent this site are sometimes some of the people involved in making decisions that might lead to threads like this. And it might be nice for those people to have read some comments here that push back on the narrative that it's actually fine to do stuff like this, especially if it's legal (but maybe also if it isn't, sometimes?).

The way I see this particular discussion is: outside the tech bubble, regardless of the new facts in this article, people see yet another big name tech leader doing yet another unrelatable and clearly sleazy thing. Then what I see when I come to the thread is quite a few of the tech people who frequent this site being like "I don't get it, what's the problem?" or "this article totally refutes all of the things people think are a problem with this". And I feel like it's worth saying: no, get out of the bubble!

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

#846

Post by infoseek12 »

z7 wrote: post #833

A voice isn't owned. It exists as a transient event of sound waves moving through space, shaped and modulated by the atmosphere, surfaces, and distances. Without a medium and the presence of listeners, these vibrations are meaningless. Thus, a voice exists only as a form of interaction with its physical environment. It's a communal event that doesn't belong to anyone.

That’s a rather idiosyncratic interpretation that doesn’t align with current views or legal structures in the Western world (look up ‘publicity rights’)

‘Ownership’ isn’t a property of the universe. It’s a value imposed by human society and philosophy. The physical reality you describe is true but irrelevant

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

#847

Post by jrm4 »

KHRZ wrote: post #664
jrm4 wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question; Why in the world would one expect the more charitable scenario?

Because it follows the legal principle of innocent untill proven guilty? Unlike the "OpenAI must have cloned Scarlett Johansson's voice" wild dystophia speculations.

This is goofy. "The law" should be careful because the law has power to do real harm.

People don't need to be careful just talking; in fact we generally support the idea of "people saying whatever" in the form of the First Amendment.

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

#848

Post by srockets »

Alupis wrote: post #747
summerlight wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Jo…

If her lawyers are half competent, then they wouldn’t lie. They may not tell the whole truth, but we’re not discussing what wasn’t said here.

As for your second question, yes. Otherwise you have a perfect workaround that would mean a person likeness is free-for-all to use, but we already decided that is not acceptable.

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

#849

Post by pyuser583 »

kstrauser wrote: post #773
summerlight wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 a special branch of law called “right of publicity” or “manners and likeness.”

It protect celebrities who rely on endorsements and “who they are” for income.

It very clearly prohibits copycats with near-likeness as a workaround to getting permission from a celebrity.

OpenAI asked SJ to use her voice. That right there helps her case immensely.

She said no. They went ahead anyway, presumably with someone or someone’s with a similar voice.

They publicized the product by referencing SJ.

These facts are damning.

They might be just a part of the story. Maybe 100 actresses, all sounding roughly the same, were given the offer over a two year period.

Maybe they all were given the same praise. Maybe one other, who signed an agreement, was praised on social media much more.

But this isn’t a slippery slope or a grey area. SJ was asked and said no.

That prohibits using a similar sounding copycat and publicizing as SJ.

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

#850

Post by aprilthird2021 »

stingraycharles wrote: post #32
skilled wrote: post #18

The 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…

Yes, but it changes the narrative from “they couldn’t get Scarlett to record the voice, so they copied her voice” to something much less malicious. Contacting Scarlett, when you already have voice recordings ready but would prefer someone famous, isn’t that bad of a thing imho.

If the goal was to make the voice sound like the one from Her, then it's still illegal.

Same way you can't get someone who sounds like a famous celebrity to do voice in a commercial and just let people think it's the famous celebrity when it's not

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