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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

#911

Post by Repulsion9513 »

tptacek wrote: post #864
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".

Lots of people are disputing it.

Where has anyone disputed "that they hired the actor that did the voice months before they contacted SJ"? Links preferred please.

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

#912

Post by Repulsion9513 »

ein0p wrote: post #770
sanderjd wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do with this. There are many successful people and businesses that I admire, and a number of notable examples of those I do not. The two your comment mentions are simply part of that latter group. I think for good reason. (But of course I would think that...)

I’m not talking about you specifically here. What you’re saying could be true for you, and not true for the community as a whole. With the benefit of experience, I can tell for certain there’s (on average) a strong undercurrent of jealousy against people perceived as overly ambitious, particularly if they are successful in their ambitions. This is not specific to this site, of course, or even to the tech community in…

That may be true, but you specifically said "on this site" and now you're saying "this is not specific to this site". And no, the vast majority of people "try[ing] to pull them down" to Musk are doing it because he's an egotistical hypocritical whiny jackass.

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

#913

Post by Repulsion9513 »

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'm not sure what RMS has to do with Altman. I'm also not sure why you think people just want to hate on Musk when it took a decade of his blatant lies for most people to catch on to the fact that he's a conman (remember, everyone loved him and Tesla for the first 5 or 10 years of lies). But the comparison between Musk and Altman is pretty apt, good job there.

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

#914

Post by Repulsion9513 »

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…

> When the reaction is “I don’t care that an investigation refuted some of the accusations”, it demonstrates someone isn’t openly approaching things in good faith.

When the reaction is "it doesn't matter, it's still not ok to copy someone's voice and then market it as being that person's voice or related to that person's voice" and your reaction is to cast that as being something else, it demonstrates you are not openly approaching things in good faith.

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

#915

Post by Repulsion9513 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #732
goatlover wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What facts disprove OpenAI making a voice that sounds like SJ such that the movie Her is referenced by Altman, and why is that actress upset?

> What facts disprove OpenAI making a voice that sounds like SJ The objective parts of this are disproved in several ways by the very article under which we're commenting . The subjective parts are... subjective, but arguably demonstrated as false in the very thread, through examples of SJ vs. Sky to listen side by side. > such that the movie Her is referenced by Altman You're creating a causal connection without a p…

> You're creating a causal connection without a proof of one. We don't know why Altman referenced "Her", but I feel it's more likely because the product works in a way eerily similar to the movie's AI, not that because it sounds like it.

There's no proof needed. A marketer doesn't market something for no reason.

We are all capable of interpreting his statement and forming an opinion about its intent. Indeed, the entire point of making any statement is for others to form an opinion about it. That doesn't make our opinion invalid - nor does the whining and backpedaling of the person who made the statement.

Your opinion may be different than others, but I doubt that would be the case if you were truly approaching this situation in an unbiased way.

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

#916

Post by Alupis »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #889
Alupis wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Johansson is a super successful actress and no doubt rejects 95% of roles offered to her, just as she rejected Altman's request to be the voice of ChatGPT. She doesn't need "go away" payments, and in any case that is not what we're looking at here. OpenAI offered her money to take the part, and she said no. According to celebrity net worth website, SJ is worth $165M.

> Johansson is a super successful actress and no doubt rejects 95% of roles offered to her

> She doesn't need "go away" payments

> According to celebrity net worth website, SJ is worth $165M.

I have no idea what Johansson's estimated net worth, or her acting career have to do with this? Wealthy people sue all the time for all kinds of ridiculous things.

The voice is, in fact, not Johansson. Yet, it appears she will be suing them non-the-less...

It's not illegal to sound like someone else - despite what people might be claiming. If it turns out to be true that Sky's voice actor was recorded prior to the attempted engagement with Johansson, then all of this is extra absurd.

Also, Sky doesn't sound like Johansson anyway... but apparently that isn't going to matter in this situation.

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

#917

Post by dctoedt »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #641
freejazz wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Reasonable" is doing a ton of work here.

"Reasonable" does a lot of work throughout the entire legal system. If there's one constant that can be relied upon, it's that "things that are reasonable to a lawyer" and "things that are reasonable to a normal human being" are essentially disjoint sets.

> "things that are reasonable to a lawyer" and "things that are reasonable to a normal human being" are essentially disjoint sets.

In litigation, any question whether X was "reasonable" is typically determined by a jury, not a judge [0].

[0] That is, unless the trial judge decides that there's no genuine issue of fact and that reasonable people [1] could reach only one possible conclusion; when that's the case, the judge will rule on the matter "as a matter of law." But that's a dicey proposition for a trial judge, because an appeals court would reverse and remand if the appellate judges decided that reasonable people could indeed reach different conclusions [1].

[1] Yeah, I know it's turtles all the way down, or maybe it's circular, or recursive.

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

#918

Post by Alupis »

srockets wrote: post #848
Alupis wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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

That is not decided. There have been high profile cases were someone's likeness was explicitly used without permission, and they still had no recourse. It was argued the person was notable enough they could not protect their likeness.

Regardless, it appears debated if Sky even sounded like Johansson, which will make this very difficult for anyone to argue (being subjective and all). If the Sky voice actor was recorded prior to engaging with Johansson (which has been claimed by OpenAI), then it seems even more difficult to argue.

In the end, this will net Johansson a nice "go away" payday and then everyone will forget about it.

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

#919

Post by renewiltord »

Repulsion9513 wrote: post #911
tptacek wrote: post #864

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people are disputing it.

Where has anyone disputed "that they hired the actor that did the voice months before they contacted SJ"? Links preferred please.

It’s actually just a few comments away, and visible for me from the parent to your comment

> Well, from the start, Altman wanted SJ to do the voice. Perhaps he'd never seen or heard of the movie "her", and the association is just coincidental? After "she" said no, then Altman auditions a bunch of voice talent and picks someone who sounds just like SJ.

I suppose some might imagine asserting the opposite as a distinct concept from disputing but there you have it. You should be able to find a link quite easily.

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

#920

Post by gg82 »

wkat4242 wrote: post #548
Terretta wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sky doesn't sound like the movie, much less "uncanny".

I think it sounds overly enthusiastic though, to the point that it sounds fake. Very overacted and dramatic. I wouldn't want to chat with that voice. Though admittedly, so does Johansson in "Her". I don't think the voices are very similar but the style is.

Just imagine, if these voice chatbots get popular... they will likely change how people talk!
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