A sensational live conversation with ChatGPT causes a dispute between the AI company OpenAI and a Hollywood star. The actress sees too much similarity with her voice.
Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson demands that ChatGPT inventor OpenAI explain why an AI voice presented by the company is very similar to her own. Johansson said in a statement published by NPR that her lawyers had written two letters to OpenAI and company boss Sam Altman.
The actress emphasized that ChatGPT’s voice, which was recently heard at a screening, was so “uncannily similar” to hers that even her closest friends and journalists could not tell the difference. OpenAI countered that the basis for the AI voice were sentences spoken by another actress – and that they were never intended to sound like Johansson.
The dispute that has now become public explains why OpenAI announced that it would temporarily phase out the voice called “Sky”. Johansson described that Altman approached her in September last year with the offer to use her characteristic voice as the basis for ChatGPT’s AI voice. After careful consideration, she declined for personal reasons.
The offer has a history: a decade ago in the film “Her,” Johansson took on the speaking role of an AI software with which the protagonist played by Joaquin Phoenix falls in love. After a demonstration that focused on ChatGPT’s spectacular ability to hold a conversation, Altman himself sought the comparison: He wrote on the online platform X that the software was like AI from movies – and provided his message with that word “her”.
Johansson “shocked and angry”
Johansson wrote that she was “shocked and angry” when she heard the AI voice from the OpenAI demonstration. Clarification of the circumstances is important. Especially in times when society is confronted with deceptively real deepfakes, transparency and effective laws are needed to protect the personal rights of individuals. It’s “about protecting our image, our own work, our own identities.”
“Sky” was introduced to ChatGPT back in September 2023 along with four other voices – “Breeze”, “Cove”, “Ember” and “Juniper”. Only with the new AI model GPT-4o should the chatbot be able to have a truly flowing conversation. The five voices are based on sentences that people have spoken for OpenAI. They were chosen from more than 400 applications from film and stage actors, the company said in a blog post. OpenAI does not mention their names – “to protect their privacy,” as it explains.
Source: Stern
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
