49 ms·

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

• m3kw9 2y ago
  Is funny seeing some peoples head get yanked back and forth because they have a predetermined bias against Sam and OpenAI. Critical thinking would have saved you the trouble.
  • CRConrad 2y ago
    It's funny seeing some people immediately being convinced by this weak-sauce defense. Critical thinking might have saved you the embarrassment.
• richardatlarge 2y ago
  Quote from the Post article: But while many hear an eerie resemblance between “Sky” and Johansson’s “Her” character, an actress was hired to create the Sky voice months before Altman contacted Johansson, according to documents, recordings, casting directors and the actress’s agent.
  • bawolff 2y ago
    > But while many hear an eerie resemblance between “Sky” and Johansson’s “Her” character, I wonder to what extent it is because they were prompted to listen for that. Would they still hear the resemblance if they didn't know who to compare it to?
    • flutas 2y ago
      I heard it when they were showing the demo without any prompting "to listen for it", as did many others. https://x.com/search?q=scarjo+until%3A2024-05-14&src=typed_query&f=live https://x.com/search?q=scarjo+until%3A2024-05-14&src=typed_q... https://x.com/search?q=johansson+until%3A2024-05-14&src=typed_query&f=live https://x.com/search?q=johansson+until%3A2024-05-14&src=type...
  • wokwokwok 2y ago
    He said, she said. Maybe the courts can decide, rather than the court of popular opinion, when we don't have access to the actual evidence? If they're that confident, why did they take the voice down? What will they do if she continues legal action? They can say anything, and all we know for sure, is that they're not honest, usually. So... lets see how it goes in court huh? ...but, I guess it won't; because they do not want that discovery. (:
• gnabgib 2y ago
  Huge discussion 2 days ago [0](1497 points, 1001 comments), related [1](141 points, 191 comments) [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40421225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40421225 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40414249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40414249
• scoofy 2y ago
  Actual Washington Post title: >OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show >>A different actress was hired to provide the voice for ChatGPT’s “Sky,” according to documents and recordings shared with the Washington Post.
  • dang 2y ago
    Ok, we've reverted the title. Submitted title was "OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice". Thanks!
• Ariel_Asura 2y ago
  It seems increasingly difficult for common people to protect their voices, especially when even Scarlett Johansson can't manage it. As a part-time voice actor with a unique voice, I'm concerned about what I should do if my voice is used without permission and the company denies it. How can I protect myself in such a situation?
  • MattGaiser 2y ago
    > with a unique voice Is your voice truly unique out of the 8 billion out there in the world? Nobody could plausibly pass as you?
    • numpad0 2y ago
      There are only 330m US Americans. Just having American throat development patterns narrow you down to a group of less than 4% of population, and it only goes down from there - e.g. PNW has only 13m people total, half that by gender, that makes someone from there belonging to a group of 0.08% of the world. You might think voice is something you're born with. It's not, it rather partially comes from languages and your backgrounds. So random chances of someone literally sounding by DNA from half a world away is quite low.
      • gambiting 2y ago
        You're talking about literal identical voice due to throat development and cultural background etc - which is obviously technically true, but I imagine a number of people who sound 99% like you(where a casual listener can't tell the difference) must be quite large. Case in point - my wife has two twin brothers. Even though I've been interacting with them for over 10 years now, they sound exactly the same to me. If I close my eyes then there is zero chance I could tell them apart by voice alone. I know, it's an anecdote - but while I'm sure you could tell them apart by some really small thing that they do, to someone who isn't actively looking for those cues they are - for all intentions and purposes - the same.
  • echelon 2y ago
    I think we'll find voices not that unique. A voice can be zero shot encoded to a few hundred kb vector. Timbre, prosody, lots of characteristics. That's less information than a fingerprint. And more importantly, that's something you can dial in with a few knobs by simply listening by ear. It's why your brain can easily hear things in other people's voices. They're not hard signals to reproduce. Some people with flexible vocal ranges can even impersonate others quite easily. I'm sure most people have gotten, "you sound like X" once or twice. Not unlike the "you look like Y" comments. Voices really aren't that fingerprint-y. If we really want to split hairs and argue from biology, who "owns" the voice of a set of identical twins?
• hotdogscout 2y ago
  A sensational lie spread much quicker than the truth even on HN, with no sign of course correction. I hope Sam feels fine after so much baseless harassment.
  • onion2k 2y ago
    A 'lie' that OpenAI themselves believed enough to take the voice down from their app to check. Presumably they trained this voice, and then wanted an official celebrity endorsement to make it better for marketing. At some point the people at OpenAI forgot it wasn't actually Scarlett. I don't think you can be critical of HN for believing it too in that case.
  • CaptainFever 2y ago
    A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
  • boxed 2y ago
    You are getting confused by an implementation detail. They wanted to copy her voice, and they did it. They asked for permission and she said no. So they went ahead and did it anyway. The voice actor involved is irrelevant.
    • gambiting 2y ago
      >> The voice actor involved is irrelevant. Quite the contrary, unless you believe that Scarlett Johanson owns the rights to the voice of anyone who sounds like her?
      • lagt_t 2y ago
        Midler v Ford
        • gambiting 2y ago
          So I didn't know about this case, and indeed, it's an interesting one. I think the key difference here is that Ford hired an impersonator to sing Midler's song, so you know....the default assumption is that it's Midler singing. In OpenAI case unless they presented the voice as being the voice of Johanson, then I don't see how hiring someone who merely sounds like her would be an issue. The "her" tweet from Altman is of course problematic in this light, but I guess it will be left up to court to decide.
• skilled 2y ago
  https://archive.is/BNFvh https://archive.is/BNFvh
• jrockway 2y ago
  I was perusing some Simpsons clips this afternoon and came across a story to the effect of "So and so didn't want to play himself, so Dan Castellaneta did the voice." It's a good impression and people didn't seem very upset about that. I am not sure how this is different. (Apparently this particular "impression" predates the Her character, so it's even easier to not be mad about. It's just a coincidence. They weren't even trying to sound like her!) I read a lot of C&D letters from celebrities here and on Reddit, and a lot of them are in the form of "I am important so I am requesting that you do not take advantage of your legal rights." I am not a fan. (If you don't want someone to track how often you fly your private jet, buy a new one for each trip. That is the legal option that is available to you. But I digress...)
  • bloppe 2y ago
    Parody is protected in the US. The Simpsons can get away with a lot of stuff because of it
  • pavlov 2y ago
    Surely there’s some kind of difference between “voice impression for a two-line cameo in one episode of an animated sitcom” and “reproducing your voice as the primary interface for a machine that could be used by billions of people and is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.” Is there a name for this AI fallacy? The one where programmers make an inductive leap like, for example, if a human can read one book to learn something, then it’s ok to scan millions of books into a computer system because it’s just another kind of learning.
    • squigz 2y ago
      > for example, if a human can read one book to learn something, then it’s ok to scan millions of books into a computer system because it’s just another kind of learning. Since this comes up all the time, I ask: What exactly is the number of books a human can ingest before it becomes illegal?
      • Seattle3503 2y ago
• skilled 2y ago
  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 prior to OpenAI contacting Scarlett for the first time. (also goes to show just how many months in advance OpenAI is working on projects) However, this does not dispel the fact that OpenAI did contact Scarlett, and Sam Altman did post the tweet saying "her", and the voice has at least "some" resemblance of Scarlett's voice, at least enough to have two different groups saying that it does, and the other saying that it does not.
  • palad1n 2y ago
    Yeah, sus af because of the call 2 days before they released it to the world. And they were just asking for it when they tweeted the frickin "her". I mean, come on.
  • stingraycharles 2y ago
    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.
    • tivert 2y ago
      > 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. I don't think it's less malicious if they decided to copy her voice without her consent, but just didn't tell her until the project was underway, then continued even after she said no. There's legal precedent that hiring a copycat is not OK, so it's not like proving it was a copycat salvages their situation. I wouldn't be surprised if the real reason they hired a copycat early is because they realized they'd need far more of Johansson's time than she'd be willing to provide, and the plan was typical SV "ask forgiveness not permission, but do it anyway regardless."
• sschueller 2y ago
  "She worked closely with a film director hired by OpenAI to help develop the technology’s personality." So you are trying to tell me there was zero chance that this film director was not aware of the movie "Her" and may have been influenced by it? Why doesn't the voice sound like the Enterprise's computer from TNG? I don't mean sound, I mean cadence, more professional and not like a sexline operator.
  • Sakos 2y ago
    What's your point here? Did they or did they not use another voice actor who gave them permission to use their voice? The voice is similar to Johansson's, sure, but it's not her voice and it wasn't an AI generated version of her voice. I'm failing to see what OpenAI did wrong here.
• moi2388 2y ago
  Yes, how dare another woman have a voice that might somewhat sound like Scarlett?
  • comfysocks 2y ago
    Can’t really fault the voice actor for having a specific voice. The question is whether or not OAI traded on the similarity to Scarlet Js likeness. The “her” tweet raises suspicions.
    • boxed 2y ago
      They asked her. She said no.
    • moi2388 2y ago
      Even if they did. How does that matter? Let’s say I want to shoot a movie. Id love to have Scarlett star in it. But I can’t afford her, so I hire some b actress that kind of looks like her. What’s wrong with that? The only way I could see this being wrong is if they then processes the voice of this different person to make it sound more like Scarlett.
      • CRConrad 2y ago
        > Even if they did. How does that matter? How the heck could that not matter?!? Making the voice similar enough that the public will associate it with the recognition and popularity of the movie is obviously capitalizing on the movie, including Johansson's performance. If they did that intentionally, they owe Johansson (and the movie studio) recompense for that. And Altman's tweet rather obviously shows it can at the very least be argued that such intent was present. > Let’s say I want to shoot a movie. Id love to have Scarlett star in it. But I can’t afford her, so I hire some b actress that kind of looks like her. What’s wrong with that? Depends on intent. If that's all you do, then fine. But if you dress your movie up to heavily imply it's a sequel to a movie with Johansson in it, and put the actual name of your "B actress" down in the fine print(1), and then tweet the name of the Johansson movie when yours is released... Do you think movie makers get away with shit like that? Or that they should? What is it about this that you don't understand? Do you genuinely not see that those are two different things, distinguished by intent? Or did you just not know that intent is often a rather vital part of whether something is legal or not? ___ (1): Or omit it altogether, like this allegedly-existing Sky voice actress is still (last I read, before the weekend) anonymous.
• slim 2y ago
  so how would the process of training a speaking AI go ? would you input the actor voice samples and subtitles from a movie, then train it till the output is similar enough to the actors voice from the movie ?
  • slim 2y ago
    what test data would they use ?
  • numpad0 2y ago
    Just couple minutes of data through 10-20 minutes of training with RVC WebUI[0] on included base model into VC Client[1] gets you to 90% there. But that's nearly an year old method, so I'm sure OAI has its own completely novel architecture for extra 5% fidelity. 1: https://github.com/RVC-Project/Retrieval-based-Voice-Conversion-WebUI https://github.com/RVC-Project/Retrieval-based-Voice-Convers... 2: https://github.com/w-okada/voice-changer https://github.com/w-okada/voice-changer
• joekinley 2y ago
  I can't help but think that this was all planned. It is a very intricately planned, and geniously executed marketing ploy to make sure everyone knows about the company, the new release, that there is voice now, and even makes everyone look into it just to "see for themselves". Whether this was in with ScarJo in the loop or not, does not really change the outcome, but would be a nice information we probably will never get, in order to understand how cut-throat whoever came up with this idea actually is. I am impressed
  • lins1909 2y ago
    [flagged]
  • skilled 2y ago
    While I cannot say you're right or wrong, we both share similar thought! So much so that I feel like this is not the first time OpenAI has done this level of antics just to get more exposure. Seriously... I have spent pondering the same every time they get into news on the basis of drama. It's either our delusion (you and me) or they have someone in the marketing department who has a really good grasp of how to ride the news cycle wave.
  • gamblor956 2y ago
    It's not very impressive. As a result of the negative publicity, most people know OpenAI as the company that steals things from other people. Most of them will never hear that this one time, OpenAI didn't actually do the thing they were accused of doing. That's the problem with having a repeat liar as a CEO: you lose any credibility for those rare instances when you're actually telling the truth.
    • frankacter 2y ago
      >most people know OpenAI as the company that steals things from other people. That is already the perception of AI in general, especially evident if you reflect back on the Github Copilot launch. People move on as the usefulness of the next shiny thing fills the void of time.
    • 2y ago
• modeless 2y ago
  > an actress was hired to create the Sky voice months before Altman contacted Johansson > the actress confirmed that neither Johansson nor the movie “Her” were ever mentioned by OpenAI. The actress’s natural voice sounds identical to the AI-generated Sky voice, based on brief recordings Given this I don't think anyone at OpenAI did anything wrong in this instance except Sam Altman. After getting explicitly rejected by Johansson he should not have asked again and definitely should not have referenced her character in that tweet. And this whole thing could have been avoided if they just used a different voice for the demo instead of their voice that happened to sound the most like her. They should have learned from Weird Al. Famously, he technically doesn't need permission to do song parodies but he asks anyway and respects the artist's wishes if they say no.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • tivert 2y ago
    >> an actress was hired to create the Sky voice months before Altman contacted Johansson >> the actress confirmed that neither Johansson nor the movie “Her” were ever mentioned by OpenAI. The actress’s natural voice sounds identical to the AI-generated Sky voice, based on brief recordings > Given this I don't think anyone at OpenAI did anything wrong in this instance except Sam Altman. Not necessarily. The OpenAI people could had the internally stated goal of making a soundalike of Johansson, sorted through the applicants to find actress who sounded closest to Johansson, then gave direction to steer the actress's performance to be similar to Johansson's in Her. All the while never mentioning Johansson or her movie to the actress directly. Maybe they were trying to mimic the precedent of Compaq reverse engineering and cloning the PC BIOS using a "Clean Room."
  • mwigdahl 2y ago
    > definitely should not have referenced her character in that tweet. Did he, though? The character's name was Samantha. The name of the _movie_ was Her.
    • CRConrad 2y ago
• seydor 2y ago
  The whole thing was absurd. The voice doesnt even sound like her
  • 123yawaworht456 2y ago
    it was an opportunity for the representatives of soon to be extinct professions to bash the technology that spells their doom. the inconvenient fact that the AI didn't actually sound like the actress didn't matter.
  • shalmanese 2y ago
    That may be your opinion but we have plenty of social media conversations about it when the voice first came out 7 months ago, before any of this was a controversy, and the only two names that are consistently brought up are Scarlett Johansson and Rashida Jones for who the voice reminds them of.
    • seydor 2y ago
      Maybe because they are famous, every voice sounds like them? Regardless, Johansson has a characteristic hoarseness in her voice which is not in the robot voice
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• bluSCALE4 2y ago
  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 month. To me, the worst part is how this makes Sam Altman to be a completely asshole with no sympathy. SJ made a movie, she wanted to live it at that. Sam Altman forced her to represent a product, forever. That’s fucked up.
  • ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
    > 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 recognized from Star Wars.
    • flutas 2y ago
      > He never mentioned her by name, he pointed out how the AI demo OpenAI created is similar to the _character_ from Her. And yet Kaparthy (a co-founder of OpenAI) did mention her by name as "the killer app of LLMs", less than 24 hours from the announcement. > The killer app of LLMs is Scarlett Johansson. https://x.com/karpathy/status/1790373216537502106 https://x.com/karpathy/status/1790373216537502106
      • ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
        Kaparthy no longer works at OpenAI. Hasn't since February.
    • bluSCALE4 2y ago
      It’s my understanding he directly asked twice: once early on and then again right before the unveiling. And your example is absurd. A fictional character about fantasy vs a fictional product were on the cusp of creating. I’ve never watched her so can’t comment more.
• xbmcuser 2y ago
  I am assuming they deliberately wanted the voice to sound like Her (the movie) for marketing so copied the voice then tried to get Johansson's permission once the legal department raised some objections. They went through with it anyway when they did not get permission. Altman has shown time again he will ignore all the rules and laws if they hamper his goals. This what I think happened I am not saying it did and I could be wrong
• xyst 2y ago
  I don’t think OpenAI has a chance to win this in open court. They are very likely to settle out of court. Investors get a bit anxious with pending litigation. But I honestly hope Johansson does not. She certainly has the runway to take it all the way. Make them look like fools in open court. Show the people their real colors.
  • SeanAnderson 2y ago
    Why do you feel OpenAI doesn't have a chance to win in court given the information presented in this WaPo article? It seems fairly conclusive to me.
    • boxed 2y ago
      Copying by hiring a sound-alike/impersonator is an implementation detail. They knew full well that they were trying to copy her voice. Then they asked. And they got a no. And then they did it anyway. I don't see how the implementation details matter at all.
      • pests 2y ago
        It's their natural voice. Are they not allowed to hire a person that sounds like... any famous person? Aren't others in this thread claiming how similar voices can be and theyre not unqiue?
        • DharmaPolice 2y ago
          I think the optics of this aren't great. You ask someone to copy their voice, they say no and then (maybe coincidentally) you release a voice designed to sound very similar. Legally this may well be fine but come on, didn't anyone think this might make them look bad?
          • Aerroon 2y ago
            Sure, but to me it looks bad from the other perspective too if this is made into a problem. A person's natural voice is their voice and some celebrity should NOT be able to dictate how it is used.
• moogly 2y ago
  Technically? Maybe not. In spirit? Sure as heck.
  • hackerlight 2y ago
    This could be confirmation bias. Here's an alternative explanation that fits the same facts. Sam tweeted "her", not due to the voice, but due the existence of a conversational system that resembled the system in the movie. This primed people to hear Scarlett Johansson's voice in a generically cheerful female voice actor who was contracted over half a year ago. Scarlett's lawyers encourage her to write a public letter, helping Scarlett with the wording, in order to steer the public narrative, in order to place pressure on OpenAI to settle with her financially out of court.
    • jamespo 2y ago
      It's an alternative explanation all right
• abrookewood 2y ago
  If they are so confident that they didn't copy her voice, then why did they pull that character/version?
  • gnicholas 2y ago
    I wondered about this also. Maybe they pulled it temporarily so that their side of the story could get out in circulation. Then they'll reinstate the voice after a while on the grounds that "as we all know, this was developed separately and in advance of any conversations with Scarlett". If they had kept the voice then it might seem like they were reacting and possibly caught off-guard. Instead, it looks like they're stepping back, assessing the facts, and proceeding with due caution.
    • dingclancy 2y ago
      Sam Altman statement said they pulled the voice out of respect to Scarlett Johansson.
      • gnicholas 2y ago
        IMO that's consistent with them trying to look like they're being responsible and considerate (even though they plan to re-release the voice in a short while, after their side of the carefully-planned story is out). In general, I assume anything a CEO says after a scandal breaks is whatever the crisis management people told him to say.
• aaron695 2y ago
  You can hear both voices for yourself and tell they are different, but y'all such NPCs you just believe the bullcrap the media spoon-feeds you not the literal sounds in your ears. New theory, HN is a honey pot for dumb people that Y Combinator studies how to make money from. Previous theory it was a Alzheimer's style "Fake bus stop" used to round up imposter hackers and keep them contained while the real Hackers did stuff.
  • maxbond 2y ago
    I'm curious why, if that's what you think about this place, you not coming here?
  • numpad0 2y ago
    Frankly speaking, both sounds plausible!
  • CaptainFever 2y ago
    I'm losing faith in Hacker News commenters too. Such an incredible display of lack of critical thinking ("oh, he tweeted Her? Must be because he's trolling ScarJo, not because the movie is literally like the real life product") and bandwagoning over this piece of news, all because HN wants to hate OpenAI. Not to mention, on the AI Paint thread, there was this heavily upvoted guy saying its servers are paid for by the stock market and tech bubble like some kind of conspiracy theorist, completely ignoring that it's run locally. I don't know why I keep coming here. I guess it's because I'm addicted. At least on Reddit you could leave subreddits and block people when they get too incomprehensible from your own perspective.
    • maxbond 2y ago
      For what it's worth, sometimes I get very frustrated with HN, but I think the reason I keep coming back is because it provides me with a lot of context. Eg, I pick up a lot of information about techniques people have applied to certain problems, which I recall when I recognize a similar problem, and that gives me a place to start. But I have had to cut myself off from a given community because my relationship became unhealthy with it many times. I get that.
• esjeon 2y ago
  I thought this was a right-of-publicity case where the "her" tweet basically misled people to believe the voice is of Scarlett Johansson, who's against the use of AI tech like any other Hollywood people?
• ml-anon 2y ago
  Then why pull the voice in the first place? If it goes to court I’m sure discovery will unearth a bunch of emails and slack messages pertaining to this as well as documentation about the make up of their training sets and casting and performance notes for the voice talent. Hopefully they’re under legal hold now.
  • nusl 2y ago
    Pulling things at first signs of an outcry seems to be the thing to do. It's hard to know how folks would have reacted had they not pulled it.
  • ben_w 2y ago
    > Then why pull the voice in the first place? Several possible reasons. 1. They're not actively malicious and have the emotional capacity to feel embarrassed 2. They know they were talking about her voice and making comparisons and that this is A Bad Look and they've had a terrible week PR-wise already 3. Might be a trademark violation, I'm not sure how that law works (in general let alone voice) but there's a reason why Pear Computer had to change their logo
    • gnicholas 2y ago
      1 is possible, 2 strikes me as unlikely (how bad of a week was it? I didn't get that sense). 3 doesn't make sense — this has nothing to do with trademark law. A logo is a 'mark' that identifies a brand, but a voice is not a 'mark.'
      • ben_w 2y ago
        #2 because they're humans and humans act emotionally — it's entirely possible for them to just go "aaaa" like all the people in comments sections do regularly. #3 famous people do seem to have some control over their likeness; I don't know how real that control is or anything about how it works, just that it looks like this from the outside. IANAL, so treat that as a claim of analogy not literal.
  • skepticATX 2y ago
• DeathArrow 2y ago
  In today's climate you are considered guilty until you prove you are innocent. People who accused you don't have to show any proof.
  • tmalsburg2 2y ago
    Today's climate, where Silicon Valley billionaires occasionally have to endure some mild pushback.
  • nhinck3 2y ago
    In today's climate I can I can infer through OpenAI's past and present actions what their intent was.
  • sanderjd 2y ago
    There is nothing new about people forming their own opinions without following the rules of courts of law. Indeed, it wouldn't have been so important to enshrine the "innocent until proven guilty" principle into legal systems, if it were already the normal way for people to react to things. It's ok for people to just be people. Courts should be held to a higher standard, but that doesn't mean regular people should be expected to act like courts.
• dharma1 2y ago
  Props for Scarlett for turning down what was likely a big chunk of change. I can see how being the official voice of AI could turn out to be counter productive for her in the longer run
  • exo762 2y ago
    What long run? She is 39 in Hollywood.
    • dharma1 2y ago
      I guess the $150m+ nw acts as a bit of a cushion/retirement nest egg. I mean longer run in terms of AI development - if it gets very polarised I’m not sure you want to be the poster girl
  • kamaal 2y ago
    This is bigger than Will Smith turning the role of Neo for the Matrix movie.
• Strawberry76 2y ago
  I think it's pretty obvious that OpenAI had decided at an early stage that the new voice should resemble the voice of SJ in "Her", regardless of which voice actresses they then contacted and in which sequence.
  • junon 2y ago
    Yeah this seems pretty clear to me too. The voice was also overtly horny, way more so than the others are. I say this as a gay man - I was uncomfortable listening to her talk about ISA specifications like she had a fetish for them. Seemed like an easy "pop culture" win akin to Cortana / Halo and Pacific Rim / GladOS.
    • danielbln 2y ago
      As a hetero man, I didn't get the overtly homeyness out of that voice, maybe somewhat flirtatious at most. Are you maybe projecting?
      • junon 2y ago
        How would I be projecting? Some of the tones she made were borderline moaning. I noticed it most on a poor connection, too, which made little sense.
• contrarian1234 2y ago
  I think it's really problematic that the government is protecting voice actor's careers. It's like if they disallowed cars on the roads to protect horse carriages. Clearly with the new technology a whole economic sector is gone and irrelevant over night. Now amateurs and small projects can afford to add good sounding voices to their creations. This is good news in the end The same goes for actors and their likenesses ... just stop protecting ultra wealthy celebrities. They'll be a bit poorer, but they're going to be okay. You're just holding back progress I can imagine in a decade some place like China which doesn't care about protecting celebrities will have movies with dozens of Tom Cruises Arnolds and Johansson's and will just be pumping out better quality content at affordable budgets. Young talented directors won't be hamstrung by these legal roadblocks
  • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > like if they disallowed cars on the roads to protect horse carriages What? Nobody is banning OpenAI from licensing voices. The censure is on, at the very least, using an unlicensed likeness to promote their new products without compensation. (Assuming Sky truly is a clean-room product.) Likeness just became a tradeable product. That wasn't true before. The better analogy is in recognising mineral rights, including crude oil, after the utility of it was recognised and traded on [1]. > ultra wealthy celebrities We have a hundred millionaire atop a multi-billion dollar industry fighting a billionaire atop a multi-billion dollar company. Nobody gets to cry poverty. > can imagine in a decade some place like China which doesn't care about protecting celebrities Would positively love to see Altman try to pull this stunt with Xi Jinping's voice. [1] https://info.courthousedirect.com/blog/history-of-mineral-rights https://info.courthousedirect.com/blog/history-of-mineral-ri...
    • defrost 2y ago
      I'd like to see him go further again, deliver all discussions on Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era via an animated Pooh Bear with the voice from the movie. https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/23/china_xi_jinping_chatbot/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/23/china_xi_jinping_chat...
• chipweinberger 2y ago
  People see what they want to see. If it wasn't for us being biased by the surrounding circumstances I don't think people would have confused their voices. Their voices are not that similar. I probably personally know people with a voice as similar to SJ as Sky's. You probably do too. The voice actress says the same: "I’ve never been compared to her by the people who do know me closely." But then suddenly a story emerges and their voices are indistinguishable. All of these extra details shouldn't have even mattered.
  • DeathArrow 2y ago
    >People see what they want to see. Sounds like a female. Sounds like a white person. Sounds like between 30 and 40. It must be SJ.
    • sanderjd 2y ago
      If she were not the voice actress in the smash hit movie that their product is directly inspired by, then this would be a great point!
  • Recursing 2y ago
    Everyone mentions the "her" tweet, but I'm surprised to see nobody mention this tweet from ex-OpenAI employee Karpathy: https://x.com/karpathy/status/1790373216537502106 https://x.com/karpathy/status/1790373216537502106 If it sounds nothing like her, and there was no intent to make it sound like her, why would he tweet "The killer app of LLMs is Scarlett Johansson"? Many people made the comparison right after it was released https://x.com/search?q=scarjo%20until%3A2024-05-14&src=typed_query&f=live https://x.com/search?q=scarjo%20until%3A2024-05-14&src=typed... and https://x.com/search?q=johansson%20until%3A2024-05-14&src=typed_query&f=live https://x.com/search?q=johansson%20until%3A2024-05-14&src=ty...
    • sebzim4500 2y ago
      Because the functionality is extremely similar to the AI depicted in Her?
• throwaway115 2y ago
  This whole thing is starting to feel like another Sam Altman spotlight production. There's enough evidence to show no wrongdoing, but it was handled in a way to make people think there was a scandal. Maximum spotlight for relatively low risk. I wonder if people will get tired of being jerked around like this.
  • LewisVerstappen 2y ago
    I honestly don't understand how delusional you have to be to think OpenAI wanted this to happen.
    • portaouflop 2y ago
      I honestly don’t understand why people care about this story at all.
      • blitzar 2y ago
        Goes to character
    • zecg 2y ago
      It's a very cheap way to get people to realize gpt4-o is something new.
      • z7 2y ago
        So they planned to remove ChatGPT's most popular voice, causing anger among many of their customers?
    • shiandow 2y ago
      I mean clearly having Scarlett Johansson on board was plan A. Bringing the voice offline and then revealing it was a recording of someone else who coincidentally sounded exactly the same is definitely plan B or C though. I don't understand how you can trust OpenAI so much to think it was all an accident.
• khazhoux 2y ago
  The press says Sky voice is indistinguishable from Scarlett Johansson, but I hear zero similarities to her voice in any of her films. Besides, of course, that it is a standard-issue unaccented white anglo female.
  • flumpcakes 2y ago
    Sounds only like Scarlett Johansson to me. I watch a lot of TV and film and can't think of a single person it sounds like other than Scarlett Johansson. I think the same would be true for most people not in the US. The tweets (one referencing Scarlett Johansson by name, and one from Sam just saying "her" are also confirming my bias here.) In all honesty, I thought this was just another thing AI vacuumed up without thought. Weird how when it's a "real" celebrity's work that gets put through the AI sausage machine people get skittish.
    • khazhoux 2y ago
      Can you post a link to the audio you think sounds like her? I’m very curious
• croes 2y ago
  Maybe we should wait. Everything OpenAI and Altman related seems to have multiple layers like an onion. If we wait long enough we might get documents which show they uses Scarlett Johansson's voice but hired an actress to claim it's hers. One month later it might be the opposite again. In times of AI fakes real evidence is hard to find.
• justeoghan 2y ago
  I never comment on HN I’ve just always been a long time lurker but I feel like I’m going crazy here reading comments. SJ is not the “AI” portrayed in the movie her. And AFAIK she does not in fact have all the same idiosyncrasies and tones in real life as the voice does in the movie because she was in fact directed to act like that. Not only that but the voices are not the same because there was another actress for sky as we have seen. To me It seems as if the case for SJ is DOA unless it comes out somehow that they in fact trained on her voice specifically. But since that doesn’t seem like the case I have no idea how SJ can legally own all voices that sound like hers. It would obviously be a different story if OpenAI were saying that sky was SJ but that’s not the case. To me the question should be is “can the studio own the character in her that openAI was copying and any similar things”. Which given that systems like SIRI were already out there in the world when the movie came out and we knew this tech was on the way. The answer should be no but IANAL. I’m not a huge fan of OpenAI anymore and I think they deserve criticism for many things. But this situation isn’t one of them. Clarification: Of course if it turns out that they in fact trained on SJ or altered the voice to be more like hers then I’d think differently. I still think the studio has more of a claim though look from the outside and not being a lawyer. Edit: clarification
  • pseudosavant 2y ago
    Exactly. Lots of voices sound like other peoples’ voices. We aren’t that unique. SJ doesn’t get to own the voice rights to everyone that sounds at all like her just because she is famous.
    • taytus 2y ago
      What about the back and forth trying to hire her, and she refusing? Sounds like: "Eh nevermind, we are going to use it anyway and BTW, I'm going to tweet 'HER' " You don't think that will have no weight whatsoever in a lawsuit?
      • ComplexSystems 2y ago
        Not if they didn't actually use it, no.
• omayomay 2y ago
  yeah but, "kind of" copied, and samalt reinforced that with refering to "her" in this tweet. samalt is walking in the shadows of ethical/non-ethical line and he seems obviously is proficient in that. however, even in such cases he does not hesitate to walk in the border of non-ethical is worrisome for the future of the ethics in ai.
• omnicognate 2y ago
  Comments full of people reading the headline and assuming that what OpenAI did here is fine because it's a different actress, but that's not how "Right of publicity" (*) laws work. The article itself explains that there is significant legal risk here: > Mitch Glazier, the chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, said that Johansson may have a strong case against OpenAI if she brings forth a lawsuit. > He compared Johansson’s case to one brought by the singer Bette Midler against the Ford Motor Co. in the 1980s. Ford asked Midler to use her voice in ads. After she declined, Ford hired an impersonator. A U.S. appellate court ruled in Midler’s favor, indicating her voice was protected against unauthorized use. > But Mark Humphrey, a partner and intellectual property lawyer at Mitchell, Silberberg and Knupp, said any potential jury probably would have to assess whether Sky’s voice is identifiable as Johansson. > Several factors go against OpenAI, he said, namely Altman’s tweet and his outreach to Johansson in September and May. “It just begs the question: It’s like, if you use a different person, there was no intent for it to sound like Scarlett Johansson. Why are you reaching out to her two days before?” he said. “That would have to be explained.” * A.K.A. "Personality rights": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights
  • scoot 2y ago
    They contacted Johansson after the Sky voice was created, they didn’t create it because she declined. The voice actor isn’t a Johansson imitator, and the voice isn’t an imitation. The only similarity between the Sky voice and Johansson’s is that it’s a white American female, so by your logic a significant percentage of the US population has a case.
    • dragonelite 2y ago
      Imaging this to be such a legal minefield, can't sell my own voice because a celeb sounds a bit alike as my own voice.
      • moralestapia 2y ago
        Exactly, that would be absolutely nonsensical.
• ilaksh 2y ago
  It's always the least significant thing that everyone cares the most about. Because people are stupid. This one case is a pretty grey area. But what is not is the voice cloning tools like Eleven Labs which can and do clone voices very well. Forget about stealing one person's voice. Or a lot of people's voices. This technology will soon be able to replace everyone's skillset. Give it 2-5 years. This type of reaction is how we know that humans will not maintain control of the planet for much longer.
  • grugagag 2y ago
    > This type of reaction is how we know that humans will not maintain control of the planet for much longer. But who will? There will always be some people who own the technology, they will hold control over people with the help of technology but not the technology itself which has no intent whatsoever. But I agree that people will be rendered powerless or even redundant which calls their existence into question.
    • ilaksh 2y ago
      Eventually things will be run by new types of AI lifeforms.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• DeathArrow 2y ago
  Some people die due to hunger, some people die due to wars, some people die due to curable diseases, but somehow, what matters most for some folks is whether OpenAI copied the voice of Scarlett Johansson. Human mind is a curious place.
  • danparsonson 2y ago
    Some of us can hold more than one thought in our head at once.
  • sanderjd 2y ago
    There is no implication anywhere that this is "what matters most" to anyone.
• wruza 2y ago
  Is there even a general consensus on likeness protection? I’m not gonna defend OAI ever now, but tbh the concept of likeness feels too stretched to me. If one naturally looks, sounds or behaves like the other, do they violate their rights? How can likeness be illegal if it’s not a direct theft of their work? Are photos of movie stars illegal to print? Where does likeness end? Is likeness yours even or does it live in people’s minds? I can make enough arguments and counterarguments, but this whole thing doesn’t sound convincing. If I want to change my voice to sound like Michael Jackson and walk like him, no one’s business if I do that and publicly. I understand the concerns of “looks and sound” models here, but the reality changes with time and thick ice becomes thin, you have to adapt too. Progress isn’t responsible for everyone’s job, especially if it’s built on such an ephemeral concept. That only worked for a while.
• facialwipe 2y ago
  @sama has done a good job at portraying himself as an elon/zuck hybrid visionary. he's either going to deliver on the agi promise or be the next @sbf_ftx. there's no in between.
  • CRConrad 2y ago
    > @sama has done a good job at portraying himself as an elon/zuck hybrid visionary. Yeah, because those are such universally-beloved role models that modelling oneself on them is a genius move.
• chrisjj 2y ago
  > On Monday, Johansson cast a pall over the release of improved AI voices for ChatGPT, alleging that OpenAI had copied her voice False reporting. The SJ statement contains no such allegation.
• FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  If using a different voice actor to imitate someone is ok, then why did the George Carlin videos get in so much trouble and have to be taken down? This would be a loop hole to imitate anybody. Including in music right? Like using imitations of Tupac.
• mleroy 2y ago
  What do you think? Is it possible to give a polite, slightly anxious translator bot a metallic-sounding British accent without having to pay C-3PO's voice actor?
• psychoslave 2y ago
  Nice way to hijack some public attention on both party. I have no doubt they will both financially benefit from this in a way or in an other.
• ac50hz 2y ago
  Of course, it’s possible that the intent or otherwise wasn’t the objective. They’ve succeeded in bringing together several associations which allude to a sophisticated and peaceful future for all of us, in spite of the possibility of any minor legal hiccups. Whether the man with something of the dark about him was responsible, involved or unaware, the company continues to lay out its strategy, concerns and targets in plain sight. I’ll try to remain outside of this chaotic arena.
• sva_ 2y ago
  OpenAI already won anyways. Either they'll pay a fine to Johansson or settle out of court. But the media hype effect the demo was supposed to bring has already happened, so they don't really need the voice anymore. The fine will be the cost of doing advertising/marketing, they absolutely knew what they were doing.
  • gverrilla 2y ago
    Not only that. They established the comparison between their product and Her. This will last for a long time.
• wavefunction 2y ago
  Why don't I get to choose the voice I interact with. More and more it feels like "AI" is gonna be a 1%er gate-kept corporate curated "experience" with significant guard-rails and fences and walls and moats and signs telling me to keep off the grass. The wealthy and powerful will again monopolize this power for their own benefit despite AI being the product of the sum of human technological civilization.
• arresin 2y ago
  Every week they get free publicity. Sam Altman is a PR genius. Just look at how much discussion he generates.
• FergusArgyll 2y ago
  As an aside, I find it bewildering the hate for success that I see on this site. Ostensibly, the readers are either Startup founder adjacent who are dying for OpenAI's success, or Techie/intellectual types, which I assume aren't looking for monetary success and I would have thought would not be bothered by someone else going on a completely different path.
  • johnbellone 2y ago
    Listen, with any new technology, someone is going to bring a court case to challenge it. This is one example of a case that OpenAI will need to contend with in the future. It’s not about hate for success. Well, maybe some of it is, but most is discourse about how several shady or questionable practices seem to be coming out of one company (OpenAI) or one person (Altman).
  • itsoktocry 2y ago
    >As an aside, I find it bewildering the hate for success that I see on this site. Some of us find the "great man" worship bewildering. You know, how we think the leaders of these companies are geniuses and have insightful things to say about everything.
    • FergusArgyll 2y ago
      I don't mean OpenAI only, I include Google, (which doesn't have any leader, basically) MSFT, TSLA (which does, I know...) etc etc I know that there are problems with each of those companies, but to hate all of them seems like a pattern to me
      • qngcdvy 2y ago
        I think its twofold. On the one hand, people don't like the CEO types that are present everywhere, hyping up anything and who always must give their five cents. The likes of Musk and Sam Altman. I include myself in this group, I for example hate how people literally still buy into the Elon Musk is our world's iron man narrative. On the other hand, if it's about companies, I think the issue is more complex. Partially it might be jealousy of Silicon Valley (I know MS is not based there) and their working environment and salaries. But it is also criticism of the tech bubble. Developers outside of that small region are no idiots either...and sometimes they get tired of the vibes being sent out by all the SV hype people...like anything there is great and will change the world and anything not from there is unimportant and dull. I think yes, there are some world-changing things happening in the valley and also in those companies, but a big chunk of the rest is just overabundance of capital that people just need to park somewhere so they throw it at idiotic startup ideas. This capital was generated by reaping in profits (Meta, Google) from all over the world by avoiding taxes through questionable corporate constructs. See google, they make money by selling ads. They only can do that because of the population in their target country and how much those people can spend. This again depends on domestic investments like infrastructure and education, payed for by taxes that google don't contribute to. This is at least my source of scrutiny when looking at all those players. But to be fair, I don't hate (all of) them.
• tejohnso 2y ago
  So if you just so happen to hire someone that coincidentally sounds like "her", and you haven't even seen the movie, no harm no foul, right? Afterall, the alternate voice actress has a right to use their voice as well. But if you deliberately seek out the actress who voiced "her" and then happen to get a similar sounding alternate after the "her" actress refuses, you're in legal violation. Is that right? I'd like to have seen this go to court.
• onethought 2y ago
  They should rename the voice: Sosumi Come on OpenAI - do it!
  • CRConrad 2y ago
    Yeah, that would be stupid AF. Hope you have a better one sometime soon.
    • onethought 2y ago
      Thanks for the contribution. I think challenging the screen actors guild and calling bullshit on “I own the sound of my voice” would be a good thing. Open AI already took a stance like this challenging copyright threats against llms. But maybe you haven’t considered it that way. Or you think unions (representing the 1%) are cool! I think they are stupid AF
• onethought 2y ago
  Protected voice? Pianos all sound the same, how come they aren’t protected? Voice is just an instrument. I love finding reasons to hate on big tech, but “it sounds like Me” (intentional or not) is bullshit. If I build a piano that sounds just like your piano… tough luck there are two pianos now.
• throwaway112996 2y ago
  Everyone eagerly citing the article, google: “who owns Washington Post”
• cal85 2y ago
  So the hard claim in the headline is based on this thought process: If they didn’t specifically mention Scarlett Johansson or Her to the voice actress, this proves they weren’t trying to copy it. Seriously? Awful journalism, sorry.
• Timber-6539 2y ago
  It doesn't really matter now, the thought has already crept inside most people's minds, whether they copied her voice or didn't. Sam probably should have changed the voice as soon as Scarlett noped out from the deal. All this furore could have been avoided.
  • CRConrad 2y ago
    That's assuming he wanted to avoid the furore. The opposite seems at least as plausible.
• gravescale 2y ago
  If AI isn't going to be voiced like Majel Barrett, this isn't a future I'm especially interested in. Computer, end program.
• drcode 2y ago
  the best they could do, with the full resources of OpenAI, is get some second hand quotes from a supposed agent to the supposed actress strange, no?
• JCM9 2y ago
  Headline presents a premise that represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the law. You don’t have to actually use the person in question to be found liable for what OpenAI is accused of doing. Famous case here is Back to the Furure Part II where the producers hired another actor and used prosthetics to look like Crispin Glover. Crispin isn’t actually in the move but people thought he was because they used tech to make it look like it was him. Sam tweeting “Her” is sort of the smoking gun here in showing it was their intention to make people think it was the same voice. Whether or not it actually was doesn’t matter per precedent in the law. What matters is that they tried to make people think it was Johansson. Sam’s tweet handed OpenAI’s lawyers a dumpster fire.
• andrewstuart 2y ago
  Does Altman really think that was the goal, to “win”? To defeat Scarlett Johanssen? The point is it’s the wrong thing to do, regardless of whether or not he can legally get away with it. No wonder Silicon Valley’s reputation for ethical behavior is in the toilet.
• eagerpace 2y ago
  When I first used ChatGPT the voice was similar enough that I thought to myself “oh that’s cool they got Johansson to do the voice.”
• Angostura 2y ago
  Get tapes from 100 actors. Select the one who sounds closest to Scarlett
  • CRConrad 2y ago
    Hey, the tape from Johansson herself will probably be in the top ten most popular choices! Maybe not top five, but at least top twenty, for sure! ;-)
• slibhb 2y ago
  I never made the connection between the Sky voice and Scarlett Johansson's. I've seen many of her movies. She has an extremely distinctive voice that has a certain huskiness to it and the Sky voice totally lacks that. Some voices are sexy and both of them fall into that category -- but that's beside the point. That aside, it is genuinely pleasant to have a conversation with chatGPTo and some of that has to do with the voices. There's a kind of irony here because people generally imagined that AI would be cold, logical, unempathetic, etc. But LLMs are the opposite; they're extremely polite and deferential. Meanwhile they aren't that good at logic!
  • gandalfgreybeer 2y ago
    I made that connection but never really thought it was the same. I just thought it was very close > Meanwhile they aren't that good at logic This statement is contentious; depends on what level of abstraction you're looking at. > Extremely polite and deferential This is a setting that can be turned off btw.
  • queuebert 2y ago
    I don't find any of the OpenAI voices sexy or deferential. They sound fake happy to me, like a customer service phone menu or an elementary school teacher, and reek of Bay area vocal fry [1] and lilt. I wish there was a greater diversity of accents and speaking patterns available, such as can be seen on the Speech Accent Archive [2]. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0yL2GezneU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0yL2GezneU 2. https://accent.gmu.edu/browse_language.php?function=find&language=english https://accent.gmu.edu/browse_language.php?function=find&lan...
  • TecoAndJix 2y ago
    counterpoint - it is the first connection made when I heard the voice. I also really enjoyed the movie Her.
• iamleppert 2y ago
  Hollywood elites know they are cooked. It’s only a matter of time before corporations like OpenAI and Microsoft make celebrities and actors as valuable and useful as the next rank and file employee. I personally want an AI Taylor Swift that can sing to me whatever song I want, and I would like it to be cheap and owned by a corporation.
• ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
  "The actors should be nonunion." Five small, unremarked-upon words that illustrate OpenAI's positioning perfectly.
• misiek08 2y ago
  I hope they produce all proofs of their innocence with AI. Maybe some people will open theirs eyes in 20-30 years after finding such records :D
• nfriedly 2y ago
  I listened to a few clips of each and was expecting them to sound more similar than they do. Sure they're both female voices with some similarities, but they sound like distinctly different people if you listen to the two back to back.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• leecarraher 2y ago
  but how could you falsify all those records so quickly and convincingly, oh nm
• lenerdenator 2y ago
  I always get suspicious when it's a company providing records saying they didn't do something, especially when they have access to technology that can be used to produce documentation that appears to be legitimate but was completely computer-generated.
• can16358p 2y ago
  If Right to Publicity laws indeed favor Scarlet here, then the law is really outdated and needs to catch up with the current paradigm. A company wanted a voice, had something in their minds, approached a voice actor who has a similar voice to what they have in mind, got rejected, then approached next candidate and worked with her. Simple as that. If this is illegal, I don't know what is legal.
  • GaggiX 2y ago
    OpenAi had been working with the "Sky" voice actress for months before first contacting Scarlett Johansson.
    • flutas 2y ago
      And one of the co-founders of OpenAI (Karpathy) also quite literally said "The killer app of LLMs is Scarlett Johansson." the day after the announcement. https://x.com/karpathy/status/1790373216537502106 https://x.com/karpathy/status/1790373216537502106
      • GaggiX 2y ago
        He wouldn't be the only person to want Scarlett Johansson voice inside ChatGPT, I read several comments wanting that (I guess "Sky" voice doesn't sound so similar after all), btw Karpathy doesn't really work for OpenAI anymore.
        • CRConrad 2y ago
          > btw Karpathy doesn't really work for OpenAI anymore. You say that as if it would give him less credibility. In reality, it is of course the exact other way around.
    • CRConrad 2y ago
      According to this cherry-picked article.
• boringg 2y ago
  Ethics aside - if anyone thinks chatGPT didn’t walk through the legality of there moves beforehand and their procedures they followed (which I'm sure are documented) I would be shocked. They are moving fast but id be certain that they knew they had relatively good legal footing. Johansson is rightfully taking them to court - likely this is all maneuvering for a settlement. Either way this brings up artists rights in an AI world which is a good thing.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• menacingly 2y ago
  I don't really care either way, but one thing that seems odd to me is how unlikable people seem to find the other voices (myself included) If this were the massive creative effort they make it out to be, it seems like they'd have netted another solid result or two
  • bradley13 2y ago
    I also dislike the voices. They sound great, but the are very overenthusiastic. "Awesome!" "Thar's great!" I don't want my computer to talk like a California valley girl. How about concise and factual? It shouldn't be wooden and emotionless, of course, but it shouldn't sound like a floofy-brain.
    • menacingly 2y ago
      Yeah, I just think it should make use of the nonverbal channel we use to communicate, otherwise we get frustrated at the inefficiency
• trimethylpurine 2y ago
  Whether they intended to sound like her or not, it doesn't sound like her.
• wumbo 2y ago
  Maybe she’s attractive because she meets a very median set of attractiveness characteristics. I.e. maybe being hot is actually less about being unique and more anout being consistent. Maybe sultry female voices only have so much variety. I didn’t think of Scarjo during the demo. That said, I don’t need robots to be sexy, so it doesn’t matter. I feel the real goal is to slow OpenAI down with distractions.
• eggy 2y ago
  Scarlett Johansson will forever be associated with this voice named, "Sky", the official voice of "Skynet" that will wipe us all off the face of the earth! In comparison, the unfolding of "her" the movie would be like a walk in the park compared to armies of Terminators. It sounds too close to Scarlett for me to believe this was not the goal whether they hired somebody else or not, and if they try and prove beyond a doubt no audio post processing was done. Just listen to famous musicians doing acoustic or no processing versions of their songs to see how much you can craft a voice or sound. [Edit] 1. A movie that features an AI voice of a female voiced by Scarlett Johansson. 2. A real-life AI company, OpenAI, is trying to put a distinct voice to their AI product vs. a canned voice. 3. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, contacting SJ to ask her to be the AI voice. 4. SJ refuses. 5. CEO of OpenAI tweets "her" the title of the movie in #1 above. Audio processing with DSP methods and current audio engineering craft or training AI to make it sound like SJ would be the thing to prove. Get raw audio of actress and finished sound and compare how they steered it to the final product and compare a spectrograph of SJ if you can get the same words. My common sense and the above facts says OpenAI did whatever they did to get close enough to SJ's voice. SA pursued it a few times, no? It definitely sounds like her enough to me.
• tempeler 2y ago
  end of IP era. Content produced by ai is expressed as generated. which means most of that products are generated not copied.
• zug_zug 2y ago
  When I first used ChatGPT's voice assistant's I was like "Wow, this one is clearly Scarlett Johansson from Her, they even copy her mannerisms." No amount of unverifiable "records" (just pieces of paper provided by somebody who has a multimillion dollar incentive to show one outcome) will change my mind. But if they can produce the actual voice artist I'd be more open-minded.
  • flumpcakes 2y ago
    As a non-American I only hear Scarlett Johansson's voice in the examples I've heard, to me it clearly is an impersonation. Maybe state-side that specific voice sound is more common and thus less recognisable as Scarlett Johansson's.
  • dbreunig 2y ago
    This shows how bad it is. If you're proactively sharing a package of docs with the Washingington Post, you're toast. Altman's outreach, his tweet, and the thousands of tweets and comments talking about how similar Sky is to ScarJo is enough to win the case in California.
    • tptacek 2y ago
      The Washington Post comprehensively refuted the story. This is like the "this is good for Bitcoin because ____" meme, but in reverse.
      • slantedview 2y ago
        They refuted it based on select documents handed to them by OpenAI.
      • FireBeyond 2y ago
        They literally didn't question any of OAI's claims. They just regurgitated them. They were desperate for a non-union-only actor in their casting. But repeatedly kept hitting up a union actor. What fears for the actress' safety have been portrayed such that not only does she needs to stay anonymous, but her agent does too? "Altman was not involved"... yet he personally reached out to SJ to try to close the deal?
• bamboozled 2y ago
  It's just annoying enough that they launched a product using a voice that sounded similar enough to generate such a controversy, why, if you had the all great "generative AI" systems at your finger tips you couldn't just generate some other completely random voice is beyond me.
  • akaru 2y ago
    Ask it for an image or for some text. Then cross-check. Many times you can see: it doesn’t make stuff up, it steals and remixes. Same thing here.
• CodeWriter23 2y ago
  Why did OpenAI comply with Johansson’s Cease and Desist letter and take the voice down? If they legit hired a different actress their response should have been “Go ahead and sue us”.
  • tombert 2y ago
    IANAL, but I suspect it was just to show that they complied with the request, so that if the law rules against them, they can minimize the damages. The less time that voice is available, the less of a case Johansson's have to try and extract money out of them. Also, lawsuits are expensive and go on forever. I think sometimes is cheaper and easier to just roll your eyes and take the L, even if you're in the right (at least in the short term).
  • karaterobot 2y ago
    They may have taken it down while they did an internal investigation to make sure. Or, regardless of their prospects of winning it, they may have not wanted to endure the cost or bad publicity a lawsuit would bring them. Neither option seems crazy to me.
• browningstreet 2y ago
  Sama has gone silent. It’s plausible they’re in negotiations or settlement talks with SJ. But he doesn’t often go silent. Even when he’s losing his job.
• gklitz 2y ago
  If we remove the “well technically” bs, they did copy her voice and they did so deliberately, the only detail they hide behind is that they did so in a less direct way than they could have done it.
• abhinavk 2y ago
  Does anyone not find any proof of intent between Sam's tweet ("Her"), Karpathy's tweet ("The killer app of LLMs is Scarlett Johansson.") and the name Sky "SCarlett AI" itself?
• humansareok1 2y ago
  Imo it doesn't sound like SJ and if they can produce the actual recorded voice lines from the actress they used and whatever model they used to clone her voice it will be trivial to prove that if need be.
• tibbon 2y ago
  Is someone's voice their IP? Is it more-valuable property because they are famous? What type of IP? Trademark? Without their name and image in combination, is a voice/likeness actually defensible? Training a computer to have any actual-human sounding voice is likely to almost match someone's voice. I haven't taken an IP class since 2004, but I'm not sure if there's a real case here is there?
  • TheJoeMan 2y ago
    Totally anecdotal, but I have no idea who is the voice of Siri. And if I met them, I as a layperson would think “you sound like Siri” not vice-versa like this case.
  • nekoashide 2y ago
    I think it's key here that if someone else trained the voice and sounded like Scarlett Johansson, and there a payment to that person, and that person exist, it feels like to me they won't have a strong case. Now if it was trained on the voices from various IP? Or "Computer generated", I think we have an argument that it was trained on her voice.
  • skilled 2y ago
    Nah, that’s too broad of an angle. I mean, you wouldn’t take Barack Obama’s voice and start making video tutorials with it. “My fellow gamers…” But what if it’s worse than just video tutorials, something vile? You simply wouldn’t want to have your voice associated with that.
• lumost 2y ago
  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 the model was too close to Scarlett Johansen's voice. In the generous case, this could come down to a few documents from product conception indicating that they wanted the model to replicate the movie "Her."
  • kylebenzle 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • themikesanto 2y ago
      Alert
  • bongodongobob 2y ago
    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.
    • lumost 2y ago
      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.
• kylebenzle 2y ago
  Yeh, we can tell.
• sobellian 2y ago
  It's a sign of the times when OpenAI tacitly encourages forming a relationship with a computer system, and controversy erupts over IP rights for voice actors. Higher-minded discussions certainly take place on a range of issues in AI. Can I rely on my AI to tell the truth? Is it ethical to use an AI for military applications? How do I make sure my AI doesn't turn into Archie Bunker? Even (IMO) fringe issues like whether it will exterminate humanity. It would seem that those are rather abstract concerns. It would seem that your average person mostly cares about who's getting paid.
  • CRConrad 2y ago
    So in that sense it's a good thing that "Open" AI are just as venal and stupid on small shit like this as on those bigger and more serious issues. So the great unwashed, with their limited attention spans (and, TBF, realistically much less insight on the big underlying issues), can see for themselves, in terms they can grasp, what a-holes they are. ETA: Seems to work on non-IT mundanes, at least. Not on tech-bro fanbois, of course, which seem to be the only kind of people defending "O"AI / Altman here.
• throw4847285 2y ago
  It's actually a Japanese actress doing an impression of Scarlett Johansson.
  • monocasa 2y ago
    Which would be a pretty cute and dry violation of likeness rights.
    • throw4847285 2y ago
      This was a Ghost in the Shell joke.
• shombaboor 2y ago
  OpenAI and sama should get no benefit of doubt given his conduct the past year or so, starting with their refusal to say whether or not they trained on youtube data.
• thepasswordis 2y ago
  In the movie “Her”, there is a smart AI assistant that you can talk to and is friendly and has good natural language. How is it not obvious to everybody that this is what Sam and the OpenAI people are referencing with their tweets? Scarlett Johanssons voice is certainly pleasing, but it feels misplaced to assume that the voice is the important thing here and not everything else.
  • talldayo 2y ago
    > How is it not obvious to everybody that this is what Sam and the OpenAI people are referencing with their tweets? Because according to Johansson, Sam also approached her twice in an attempt to license her voice legitimately. That's not the sort of thing that happens when you make an incidental reference to a film; he wanted that voice, so badly that he tried making a second offer (and got refused). > but it feels misplaced to assume that the voice is the important thing here We're just as surprised as you are; honestly, Sam should have known better than to drill down and insist on something as stupid as copying a misanthropic psychological horror film.
    • Conasg 2y ago
      I know it's kind of nitpicking, but it was never intended to be misanthropic or a psychological horror. It's a sci-fi romantic drama; I don't really see where the misanthropy or psychological horror aspects are?
      • talldayo 2y ago
        I might be conflating it with Black Mirror at this point; it's been a while since I saw either (and I wasn't fond of either when they released, too). Still, I think Sam ought to see the writing on the wall regardless when people come out en-masse to say "this is kinda creepy, dude." It feels pretty obvious to me that his behavior is verging on obsessive and definitely toeing the line of technology fetishism. That's just my impression, though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
        • 2y ago
• uberdru 2y ago
  Tom Waits provides the template here. He successfully sued Cheetos for impersonation. The major similarity: Waits, like Johansson, declined an offer to use his voice in advertising.
  • mwigdahl 2y ago
    And so OpenAI can't legally... use any adult white female's voice in their product? I'm not a lawyer, but doesn't there have to actually be a reasonable voice resemblance to conclude that there's impersonation? In a side-by-side "taste test" I don't think these two voices are very similar.
    • CRConrad 2y ago
      > And so OpenAI can't legally... use any adult white female's voice in their product? No, they can't legally use an adult white female's voice that might be mistaken for Johansson's in their product and imply it has anything to do with Johansson's performance in the movie _Her_. So... Smart tweet there, Sam. Really smart. (I don't quite get why the Techbro - venture capitalist sphere is so enamored with this guy. From all I've seen reported about him, he seems not only a grade-A arsehole, but dumb as a fucking brick. But maybe they identify with that.)
• sircastor 2y ago
  I can’t help but think this is a matter of bias. I think the voice sounds a bit like Scarlett Johansson. But I’ve been told by two different people that I sound like Charlie Sheen… when I’m on the phone. This feels a bit to me like confirmation bias: “OpenAI is selling an AI voice tool just like in that movie! Surely that’s what they’re going for!” That said, the fact that they contacted her twice about it does feel awfully suspicious
• spaceribs 2y ago
  If you're interested in the background of voice trademark lawsuits, Tom Waits is a great deep dive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6y1kc8Equk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6y1kc8Equk
• gmd63 2y ago
  What also concerns me is the piggybacking on the entire likeness crafted by the artist responsible for the actual movie Her. Did OpenAI pay any amount of credit to the artist responsible for the free creative direction they copied for their AI's voice? I would imagine more than the voice actor, the person responsible for casting Scarlett and writing the movie would deserve something.
  • bamboozled 2y ago
    Has Open AI paid for anything they've taken without asking? Maybe, but we wouldn't know because nothing they do has any transparency. They absolutely suck as a company.
• DustinBrett 2y ago
  We are getting into the details of what is copying. If you can find someone with the identical voice who is a different person, is that all it takes? It seems to me the intention was to hire someone who sounded like the character from Her.
  • GaggiX 2y ago
    The voices are not identical tho.
• dragonwriter 2y ago
  Hiring a different voice artist might show that they didn't use deepfake technology to imitate Johansson’s voice, but it absolutely doesn't prove that the voice isn't an imitation and one for which they would have been liable under existing law.
  • apwell23 2y ago
    voice imitation is illegal?
    • monocasa 2y ago
      Copying likeness can be.
      • hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago
        Not for commercial purposes and not in California. Otherwise you’d just hire an impersonator and never pay for celebrity endorsement.
        • postalrat 2y ago
          And whats wrong with hiring an impersonator?
          • monocasa 2y ago
            If not for parody, it's normally a violation of likeness rights.
            • postalrat 2y ago
              Are those rights only celebrities enjoy?
              • monocasa 2y ago
• chrisbrandow 2y ago
  Welcome to our incredible future where massive AI models will require us to choose between our lying eyes/ears and indecipherable collection of tensors. Nothing will be provable or protectable.
• OrangeFlush 2y ago
  People are completely missing the point in this thread. This is a civil action where the plaintiff need only prove their case based on the preponderance of the evidence. The case law is clear and it is linked all up and down these threads so I won't reproduce here. It does not matter if it was a voice actor who sounded just like her, or if it was a trained AI voice that never used a single recording from ScarJo, what matters is if OpenAI intended to gain from reproducing the likeness of Scarjo. Intent is the key, not even how similar the voices are or the source. Given that the Jury of average joes will be given this instruction directly by the judge, you can almost hear the plaintiff's lawyers case. "OpenAI contacted Scarlett 9 months before release asking to use her voice. She refused. OpenAI contacted her two days before release again asking to use her voice and she refused. Then, just prior to launch the CEO of the company tweets "Her" despite the fact that they could not secure an agreement with my client. The CEO of OpenAI, when engaged in a massive launch and PR campaign, referenced the likeness of my client in a clear attempt to produce economic benefit." The two contacts before made the case 50/50 from the plaintiff's perspective. sama tweeting "Her" right before the launch is him spiking the football in his own endzone. The defense only has technicalities. At the civil level of burden of proof this is an absolute slam dunk case for the plaintiff. OpenAI will settle for a very large undisclosed amount of money. No way they let this go in front of a civil jury.
• AndrewKemendo 2y ago
  OpenAI is running laps around the media and everyone is eating it up Notice that every month or so they have a few new “scandals” with high intrigue but noticeably iron clad legal and political “cover your ass” investments/ politicking Meanwhile they are getting deep into bed with Apple, making an admarket (worst possible case scenario for users IMO) and generally cementing all of these commercial inroads for revenue I’d be impressed if it weren’t so destructive and psychotic No press is bad press
  • sanderjd 2y ago
    This isn't true at all. It can seem true for a surprisingly long time, but sometimes bad press is bad press. Tesla's no press is bad press "strategy" recently came home to roost. No matter how you slice it, alienating your core constituency of customers is bad business. This "bad" press certainly might not actually be bad. But it just isn't true that all press is good. It's a nice quip, but in practice, the actual details matter.
• TechRemarker 2y ago
  When the original news broke, I don’t think the assumption was ever they actually used her voice as of course they would be sued instantly. But rather they wanted her especially after her Her movie, but of course to be safe first got another woman to record one that would sound very similar and then later ask Johansson to hopefully get her instead. She said no so they tried one more time before releasing and she still said so no so went with the very much like her but not her version and made reference to the Her movie to leave little doubt who you should think of when listening to that voice. So doesn’t seem like the above news changes any of that other than at least confirming they didn’t completely go off the rails and actually clone her voice from her actual content without permission which would have been insane.
  • GaggiX 2y ago
    "Sky" voice has been available for 8 months now, they didn't ask for Scarlett Johansson voice several times before releasing it.
• hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago
  Nice of Jeff to do give Sam some free PR crisis management. Class solidarity brings a tear to my eye.
• akaru 2y ago
  This article is a paid hit-piece. Trumpian language and all: “people are saying—very good people, the best people—that the voice wasn’t copied. It was a perfect call.” It is so obvious that her voice was stolen, and they are paying to try to cover it up.
• CRConrad 2y ago
  Funny how this post was up on the front page after twelve hours.
• CosmicShadow 2y ago
  Kind of concerning to see so much sketchbag behaviour from possibly the top AI company so consistently. Sure brings a lot of confidence in the future and sad that they can get away with it and still succeed because of the tech and their big names. It feels like it took years before people started hating Google and Tesla, but these guys wasted very little time pretending to be good. Do I still pay for and use them? Unfortunately yes, but I won't spend a second defending them or thinking they are trying to do anything remotely good, safe or ethical. Once things settle and hopefully someone else takes over, I can move my money elsewhere.
  • coffeebeqn 2y ago
    Kind of makes the sama ouster seem more reasonable if this is the quality of his calls
    • sanderjd 2y ago
      I was so confused how so many people at the time didn't think it was clearly reasonable. The man has already taken over an "open" AI company and subverted its non-profit mission and governing structure. I was sympathetic to the employees who didn't want to see their giant equity compensation evaporate, but how anyone else looked at that power struggle and thought he was on the right side of it remains beyond me.
  • veidr 2y ago
    I feel like this is the most important comment I read before giving up — Altman seems to have tried to move fast and break things (a dubious strategy at best) but now he's going full Musk/Shkreli.
• jmull 2y ago
  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 records didn't mention it. The key decision-makers could simply have agreed to keep that fact close-to-the-vest -- they may have well understood that knocking off a high-profile actress was legally perilous. Also, I think we can readily assume OpenAI understood that one of their potential voices sounded a lot like SJ. Since they were pursuing her they must have had a pretty good idea of what they were going after, especially considering the likely price tag. So even if an SJ voice wasn't the original goal, it clearly became an important goal to them. They surely listened to demos for many voice actors, auditioned a number of them, and may even have recorded many of them, but somehow they selected one for release who seemed to sound a lot like SJ.
  • 93po 2y ago
    The article clearly disputes this. They hired and worked with the voice actor for Sky months before the first time SJ was contacted, and the voice actor used for Sky never had the movie Her or SJ's name mentioned to her a single time
    • qarl 2y ago
      Right. And that's extremely hard to believe. A discovery search of the internal emails should give us a definitive answer.
      • tptacek 2y ago
        To find this "extremely hard to believe", you have to argue that this story, which has multiple sources unaffiliated with OpenAI, contemporaneous documentary evidence, and is written by a reporter with every incentive in the world to roast OpenAI, is directly wrong about facts plainly reported in the story. I think you have to want this story to be wrong to think it's wrong. It's a tough beat! Everyone was super sure OpenAI did this bad thing just a couple days ago, and now they're feeling sheepish about it.
• wnevets 2y ago
  Oh cool we're currently in the gaslighting phase after someone gets caught doing something they shouldn't.
• cdme 2y ago
  Convenient story for a company that's proven difficult to trust at every possible turn.
• j45 2y ago
  An interesting thing about this vocal similarity is using udio.com If you pick a particular genre, sometimes the output can feel like many similar singers voices merged together... and not. I remember noticing the Sky voice going away, and mannerisms aside it felt a little more expressive and upbeat than I expected.
• j45 2y ago
  OpenAI could also introduce the actor they hired more prominently. But that doesn't seem to come forward as of yet.
• nojvek 2y ago
  The issue is Sam even asking SJ. And then sending her another ask before the release. If they just released, people would be like hey it’s like “Her”. Sky doesn’t sound like SJ. It’s a different voice. Sam didn’t have to tweet “her”. The problem with CEOs is they can’t keep their mouths shut. Same with Elon. They have God complex and need to be center of attention. If Elon just kept it to science memes, Tesla would be a much larger company. But they can’t keep their heads down and execute. They gotta be out there with their megaphones alienating the very crowd that got them there. At this point, I feel OpenAI would be a more successful company without Sam.
• dehrmann 2y ago
  As soon as Scarlett Johansson said "no" (which I assume is true), OpenAI needed to go in very different directions to avoid anything that might look bad. It doesn't matter if they used a sound-alike or built a model from actual source material; anything would look bad. It looks especially bad when the company insists chatbot outputs are synthesized and not copyright infringement.
  • hifromwork 2y ago
    "Looking bad" is not illegal. If OpenAI didn't do anything illegal, saying it shouldn't do something because it might "look bad" is unfounded. In general, listening to what people say and avoiding things that might "look bad" to someone is a bad life strategy.
    • sanderjd 2y ago
      They may or may not have done anything illegal. I think the facts in this article help their legal case significantly! It is a bad life strategy as an individual to worry too much about the judgement of others. But marketing and PR are important parts of running a business. It may be annoying that your customers care about things that you see as silly PR stuff, but it still matters to the business.
      • CRConrad 2y ago
        > It may be annoying that your customers care about things that you see as silly PR stuff, but it still matters to the business. Well it was the busines that engaged in the silly PR stuff in the first place, so... They knew it would matter to the business, they just hoped it would go differently. That's why they did it in the first place.
• runjake 2y ago
  Sky sounds more like Rashida Jones than SJ, to me.
• d--b 2y ago
  Says the paper that just entered into an agreement with OpenAi
• luxuryballs 2y ago
  “Can you generate me some records that indicate we didn’t copy…” /s
• leovander 2y ago
  A lot of comments seem to forget that she was reached out to two years before, ignoring that and going straight to the line about working with a voice actor for months then them asking SJ one more time. Additionally, glad no one here is a lawyer and should stick in their lane.
  • leovander 2y ago
    Sorry, 7 months* before.
• vagab0nd 2y ago
  I'm pretty confused throughout the whole thing, because I never got to hear the damn voice that sounded so similar to SJ! The demo voice was overly dramatic, and sounded nothing like her IMO. I've searched everywhere and couldn't find the "Sky" voice (I guess because they took it down?).
• redleggedfrog 2y ago
  Oh goodness, this is just the kind of behavior that shows how incapable OpenAI and Altman himself are of conducting their business in a responsible manner. Just the thing you don't want to see in the field of AI. Up next, SJ AI generated revenge porn in retaliation for her causing the ruckus. Of course, completely disassociated from anything at OpenAI (wink, wink).
• mucle6 2y ago
  These white swans prove there are no black swans! \s
• slantedview 2y ago
  This headline should be _some_ records show.
• Joel_Mckay 2y ago
  While legally there is probably no recourse, the business goodwill with consumers is gone. Scarlett Johansson has a lot of fans, and they will now see your company as a problem. Legally you might get a pass... but business wise it is a big Nope... nerd hubris strikes again. =)
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• thelittleone 2y ago
  Has the default voice on the mobile app changed in the last few weeks. I don't recall what voice name I had selected before, but it was amazing quality. I thought the voice was Rashida Jones [1] whose voice is in some ways similar to SJ. [1] https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0429069/?ref_=tt_cl_t_3 https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0429069/?ref_=tt_cl_t_3
• theturtle32 2y ago
  Honestly, I didn't think it sounded remotely like her. Even after the allegation surfaced and I went back and listened, I still don't think it sounds anything like Scarlett Johansson.
• nuancebydefault 2y ago
  >an actress was hired in June to create the Sky voice, months before Altman contacted Johansson, according to documents, recordings,... documents, recordings,... these days can be artificially created if I'm not mistaken?
• z7 2y ago
  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.
  • infoseek12 2y ago
    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
• egberts1 2y ago
  OepnAI may have not copied but they sefinitely "sampled" the voice.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• htrp 2y ago
  > One thing the artificial intelligence company didn’t request, according to interviews with multiple people involved in the process and documents shared by OpenAI in response to questions from The Washington Post: a clone of actress Scarlett Johansson. Open AI found records to show they did nothing wrong in response to questions from WaPo
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• Paddywack 2y ago
  Could he not just have bought the rights from the studio that owns “Her”, and have been in the clear?
• alexshibu 2y ago
  [flagged]
• ByAzuraFan 2y ago
  Why would they want a seductive sexy voice like SJ anyway. That’s just distracting and not conducive to the AI product being helpful or increasing productivity.
• skeledrew 2y ago
  As someone who watched the 4o demo, enjoys MCU works, and saw Her, but wasn't even aware of the connection between Black Widow and Samantha (no idea who SJ was until this whole thing), a lot of the comments on this post are absolutely ridiculous.
• classified 2y ago
  You know they're lying because their mouth is moving.
• GuB-42 2y ago
  Can it be argued that they copied "Her" voice, not Scarlett Johansson’s voice? I mean, yes, Scarlett Johansson is the actress, but she is not playing herself in the movie. I didn't watch the movie, but I guess she matched her voice to the character, an AI called Samantha, who is not Scarlett Johansson. It is not like the "Midler vs Ford" case that is often referred to. Where Ford hired a singer to sound like Midler, but that's Midler singing as Midler, not acting a fictional character. Maybe Warner Bros could complain, they are the owners of the character OpenAI imitates. In the same way that Disney (rather than Scarlett Johansson) would complain if someone used the Black Widow character without permission.
• urbandw311er 2y ago
  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-scarlett-johansson/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2024/05/22/do-not-mess-with-sca...
• seec 2y ago
  The whole outrage is so stupid. It is a very stupid fact of our modern capitalist system that some people can get a ton of money just for who they are, after becoming famous for various reasons (a lot of luck for many). It is just not fair that some people can get so much money without doing any real work while most of the regular people have to work their ass off just to survive. It is worse than unfair; it is terribly inefficient. In this case they even tried to do the right thing and offered her compensation. She declined, probably because she thought it wasn't enough money (never underestimate the vanity/cupidity of women). In the end they showed that they were just being "nice": they don't even need her work output of voice acting, they can just create a similar enough version just fine. And the fact is that it isn't her voice. She didn't do the work, she refused. It also should be clear that there is bound to be another woman in the world with similar physical characteristics that has a voice close enough to her. She just cannot own a particular voice characteristic, she could have owned the work associated with her voice acting, but she refused. The whole outrage is just dumb, I really hope she loses in court because otherwise it is going to set a very problematic precedent. They are enough people in the world profiteering from various position without actually doing the equivalent work value that we don't need to get them even more money.
• the_af 2y ago
  Completely sidestepping whether OpenAI did a scummy or underhanded thing here: I don't find Sky's voice to be all that close to Scarlett Johansson's. Scarlet has a "hoarseness" to her voice that is completely missing from Sky. It's difficult to describe, but you can see hear it in any clip from the movie Her, but that's what she actually sounds like in most movies. I can completely buy that they were looking for a voice actress that sounded kind of like Scarlett, but this mimic isn't perfect because it misses this "raspiness".