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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

#961

Post by mewpmewp2 »

kevingadd wrote: post #779
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…

When it comes to whether something is "wrong", in general intent matters a lot and what they did was communicate an obvious intent. There are certainly ways they could have avoided doing so, and I'm not sure I understand the value of trying to dissect it into a dozen tiny pieces and debate which particular detail pushes it over the line from ambiguous to hard-to-deny? Maybe I don't understand what kind of clarity you…

What if they hired 10 different voice actors with no intent to have someone like SJ, but one voice actor actually did sound like from Her so they liked it the most and decided to go with it. And if only after the fact they realized that it is quite similar to SJ in general and decided to reach out to her and also went along with the Her idea due to obvious similarities?

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

#962

Post by CRConrad »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #455
bluSCALE4 wrote: post #49

Anyone who thought OpenAI would just take SJ voice isn’t thinking things thoroughly but anyone that doesn’t see the request as a courtesy and the follow-up as a ‘get behind this or get nothing’ is blind. This was a strong arm move with SJ’s concept was always optional. It’d of been good press. Now that it’s the opposite, they’ll still get the voice they wanted but everyone will forget why a shitty move this within a…

> Sam Altman forced her to represent a product, forever. That’s fucked up. He never mentioned her by name, he pointed out how the AI demo OpenAI created is similar to the _character_ from Her. If you don't want to be linked to a character forever, maybe don't act? It's just such a ridiculous statement to make. Like making an argument that no one should talk about Obi Wan because Alec Guinness didn't like being recogn…

> he pointed out how the AI demo OpenAI created is similar to the _character_ from Her.

Are you a mind-reader, or how do you know that that was all he intended?

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

#963

Post by beeboobaa3 »

CRConrad wrote: post #935
beeboobaa3 wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a crime for voice actors to sound similar to, say, Darth Vader?

ITYM > Is it a crime for voice actors to sound similar to, say, James Earl Jones? And the answer is, of course: It depends. For one thing, it depends on whether the company using the sound-alike's voice are in a business closely related to the theme of Star Wars, and whether they market whatever it is they're marketing by referring to Jones' iconic performance as Vader. (" ... ") If they do that, then yes, it most li…

No, I specifically asked about Darth Vader, the fictional character that has been voiced by various voice actors (including the original trilogy, clone wars, etc). Presumably Earl Jones does not sound like Darth Vader in his day to day life, but this is not about Earl Jones, it is about the character.

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

#964

Post by jackothy »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #786
jackothy wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

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 guess that's just the kind of voice he likes. So, Altman has forgotten about SJ, has 5 voice talents in the bag, and is good to go, right? But then, 2 days(!…

[flagged]

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

#965

Post by lumost »

bongodongobob wrote: post #567
lumost wrote: post #513

Unless they can point to a voice actor that they did copy. It will be very difficult for them to prove that it wasn't trained to replicate Scarlett Johansen. Was the model trained on movies? were annotators instructed to compare to the movie "Her" - lots of ways to see this become problematic. The fact that Sam Altman was requesting a licensing deal days before launch would suggest that they had a known problem that…

That's not really how proof works. SJ needs to prove it was modeled after her. Seeing as it doesn't sound like her, this whole thing is DOA.

In Civil court, all that is needed is a preponderonce of evidence as I recall. There would certainly be enough evidence to get discovery kicked off and have lawyers reviewing internal OpenAI docs.

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

#966

Post by munksbeer »

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.

>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.

People lose their rational mind when it comes to people they hate (or the opposite I suppose). I don't care for Sam Altman, or OpenAI one way or another, so it was quite amusing to watch the absolute outrage the story generated, with people so certain about their views.

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

#967

Post by munksbeer »

pyuser583 wrote: post #849
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 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 som…

>She said no. They went ahead anyway

This is where your post breaks down. Many people say they don't think the voice sounds like SJ. Others do. But it appears you've made up your mind that they deliberately emulated her voice?

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

#968

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #668
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…

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…

> Are we supposed to believe that the company lawyer or head of HR did this without consulting (or more likely being instructed by) the co-founder and CEO?!

Yes this is pretty typical. The CEO doesn’t make all decisions. They hire people to make decisions. A company’s head of legal could definitely make decisions about what standard language to use in documents on their own.

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

#969

Post by urbandw311er »

To all those going around in circles debating the legality of hiring similar-sounding voice actors (spoiler: it’s still illegal) there’s a great round up post by Zvi M on this — you want to be looking here if you’re interested:

https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2024/05/22/do-not-mess-with-sca...

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

#970

Post by munksbeer »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #884
bnralt wrote: post #740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

OpenAI allowed the reporter to hear some snippets from the audition tape. Not exactly my idea of an "investigation". There are multiple parts to the voice performance of ChatGPT - the voice (vocal traits including baseline pronunciation) plus the dynamic manipulation of synthesized intonation/prosody for emotion/etc, plus the flirty persona (outside of vocal performance) they gave the assistant. The fact that the bas…

Have you listened to both voices in the comparisons floating around? There is no way any of SJ's closest friends or family would be fooled if that voice called them up pretending to be SJ.
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