Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson wants an answer from Sam Altman’s Open AI on why the company used a voice very similar to her. She has accused OpenAI of copying her voice for ChatGPT’s ‘Sky’ system. Later, OpenAI refuted the allegations removed the voice, and cleared the controversy saying that it belonged to a different actress.
What Was Scarlett Johansson’s Allegations Against OpenAI?
Scarlett Johansson claimed that OpenAI used a ChatGPT voice very likening to hers even after turning on the company’s request to voice to a conversational ChatGPT system. In a statement, Johansson says that she has sent two letters to OpenAI asking how the soundalike ChatGPT voice, known as Sky, was made.
According to Johansson, she was initially approached by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in September 2023 to serve as ChatGPT’s voice. The actor claimed that even though she turned down the offer, Altman continued to look for a voice for the “ChatGPT 4.0 system” that sounded just like her. She even referenced to the AI system from the film Her, in which she had provided the voice of the chat system.
Read her statement below:
“Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system,” Johansson wrote in a statement, which a representative shared with NBC News. “He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people.“
“After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer,” she continued. “Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named ‘Sky’ sounded like me.”
“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference,” Johansson wrote in the statement.
“Two days before the ChatGPT 4.0 demo was released, Mr. Altman contacted my agent, asking me to reconsider. Before we could connect, the system was out there,” Johansson wrote. “As a result of their actions, I was forced to hire legal counsel, who wrote two letters to Mr. Altman and OpenAI, setting out what they had done and asking them to detail the exact process by which they created the ‘Sky’ voice. Consequently, OpenAI reluctantly agreed to take down the ‘Sky’ voice.”
“In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity. I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected,” she wrote.
Last week OpenAI introduced the Sky voice, which sounded very similar to that of Johansson’s disembodied AI companion in Spike Jonze’s 2013 movie Her, in a demo of GPT-4o.
OpenAI’s Sam Altman Responded to Scarlett Johansson’s Allegations
OpenAI removed the heavily promoted voice option from ChatGPT on Monday following a widespread reaction to the flirtatious, feminine voice.
The company published a blog post about Sky’s creation and claimed that the company values the voice-acting industry.
“Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice,” the blog post read. “To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talents.” (Via The Guardian)
“The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson’s, and it was never intended to resemble hers,” Altman said. “We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson. Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky’s voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better.“
her
— Sam Altman (@sama) May 13, 2024
Spike Jonze’s 2013 film, Her, starred Scarlett Johansson as the voice of an AI known as Samantha, who gradually reaches a super-intelligent cognitive state, with other A.I.
