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I don't know, to me, it's just sounds like they know how to cover all their bases. To me, it sounds like they had the idea to make their AI sound like "her". F

I don't know, to me, it's just sounds like they know how to cover all their bases. To me, it sounds like they had the idea to make their AI sound like "her". For the initial version, they had a voice actor that sounds like the movie, as a proof of concept. They still liked it, so it was time to contact the real star. In the end, it's not just the voice, it would have been the brand, just imagine the buzz they would have got if Scarlett J was the official voice of the company. She said no, and they were like, "too bad, we already decided how she will sound like, the only difference is whether it will be labelled as SJ or not". In the end, someone probably felt like it's a bit too dodgy as it resemblance was uncanny, they gave it another go, probably ready to offer more money, she still refused, but in the end, it didn't change a thing.

gnicholas 2y ago
Agreed — seems like they had a plan, and probably talked extensively with Legal about how to develop and execute the plan to give themselves plausible deniability. The tweet was inadvisable, and undoubtedly not part of the actual plan (unless it was to get PR).
- safety1st 2y ago
  > unless it was to get PR I think this possibility doesn't receive enough attention, there is a class of people who've figured out that they can say the most scandalous things online and it's a net positive because it generates so much exposure. (As a lowly middle class employee you can't do this - you just get fired and go broke - but at a certain level of wealth and power you're immune from that.) It is the old PT Barnum principle, "They can say whatever they want about me as long as they spell my name right." Guys like Trump and Musk know exactly what they're doing. Why wouldn't Sam? Johansson's complaint is starting to look a little shaky especially if you remove that "her" Tweet from the equation. I wouldn't put this past Altman at all, he knows exactly what happened and what didn't inside OpenAI, so maybe he knew she didn't have a case and decided to play Sociopathic 3D Chess with her (and beat her in one round)
  - repeekad 2y ago
    As a lowly middle class employee it could be interpreted externally as “representing the company” which is why you see disclaimers like “all views are my own” on some social media profiles. Sam is the company, so they can’t get mad at him, and beyond that he’s a private individual saying whatever he wants on social media without lying. In order to sue, there need to be damages, and if they didn’t copy the voice then the rest doesn’t matter, which sam and team clearly knew and were fast to work with the news. I agree that smart people take advantage of what they can get away with, but this controversy couldn’t have turned out better for increasing brand awareness good or bad (as you say, just like trump and musk know how to do)
  - lupire 2y ago
    Johansson might not win a lawsuit, but she isn't looking bad at all. She is totally standup in the Arts vs BigTech AI cultural battle. (See also, Apple's recent iPad crushes all artist material" commercial.) Nothing in this article changes the essence of her complaint. The only real, though partial, rebuttal to her is that OpenAI copied a work product she did for a movie, and the movie was was more than her voice, so it's not totally her own work. So maybe the movie team as a whole has a stronger complaint than the voice actor alone. She didn't lose any game of wits. She just got done dirty by someone who got away with it. She doesn't need money from them. She has respect from people who matter, SAM and OpenAI behaved badly like big tech always does. If OpenAI permanently stops using Johansson-like Sky voice, she'll win what she wanted. Of course, anyone whose voice sounds like an AI has the unpleasantness of that experience, and a rich person is more able to endure it than a regular Johansson.
- visarga 2y ago
  I am sure it was for free PR. Streisand effect trap for ScarJo.
  - z7 2y ago
    They removed ChatGPT's most popular voice in response, causing anger among many of their customers... for PR?
    - visarga 2y ago
      I can't say much about that particular voice because I almost never used chatGPT's voices. They are too slow. I need 1.5x speeds even if I have to use a worse voice. I am a TTS power user, listening to all online text since 2010s. Maybe GPT-4o has a more flexible voice, perhaps you can just ask it to speak faster.
      - gnicholas 2y ago
        They also need to have a terse mode, to avoid all the throat-clearing that I've seen in videos.
dingclancy 2y ago
Sure but Skye is still not SJ.
jorvi 2y ago
> In the end, someone probably felt like it's a bit too dodgy as it resemblance was uncanny What if it wasn’t a computer voice model but rather a real-life voice actress that you could pay a few cents to try to imitate Scarlett Johansson’s voice as best as she could? That’s effectively what’s happening here, and it isn’t illegal. It guess it also leads to the bigger question: do celebrities own their particular frequency range? Is no one allowed to publicly sound like them? Feels like the AACS DVD encryption key controversy all-over again.
- krisoft 2y ago
  > That’s effectively what’s happening here, and it isn’t illegal. It is more complicated than that. Check out Midler v. Ford Motor Co, or Waits V. Frito Lay.
  - theultdev 2y ago
    Ford hired impersonators, she's not an impersonator, that's her real voice. She's allowed to be a voice actor using her real voice. Your can point to the "Her" tweet, but it's a pretty flimsy argument.
    - senorrib 2y ago
      Whether the actor was an impersonator or not is still up to debate. I can see an argument being made when you consider the entire context.
      - theultdev 2y ago
        I don't see any argument considering the entire context, care to explain?
    - Matticus_Rex 2y ago
      This is correct, and is very different from both the Midler and Waits cases. The courts are never going to tell a voice actor she can't use her real voice because she sounds too much like a famous person. And besides, it sounds more like Rashida Jones anyway. It's clearly not an impersonation.
lupusreal 2y ago
> In the end, someone probably felt like it's a bit too dodgy as it resemblance was uncanny, they gave it another go, probably ready to offer more money, she still refused, That was just a few days before launch, right? What was their plan if she said yes at that point? Continue using the "not-her" voice but say it was her? Or did they also have her voice already cloned by then and just needed to flip a switch?
- prmoustache 2y ago
  > Continue using the "not-her" voice but say it was her? Or did they also have her voice already cloned by then and just needed to flip a switch? One or the other. It doesn't really matter as SJ herself would not have necessarily been able to make sure it is not her and not a glitch in how the tech work with her voice.
nardawg99 2y ago
[dead]
Terretta 2y ago
Sky doesn't sound like the movie, much less "uncanny".
- wkat4242 2y ago
  I think it sounds overly enthusiastic though, to the point that it sounds fake. Very overacted and dramatic. I wouldn't want to chat with that voice. Though admittedly, so does Johansson in "Her". I don't think the voices are very similar but the style is.
  - gg82 2y ago
    Just imagine, if these voice chatbots get popular... they will likely change how people talk!
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      I think at the moment it's the opposite: It seems based on how many celebrities talk. When we watch them on TV, youtube, tiktok whatever they're not real people but just playing a role. It's not how they really are in their real life. The overacted enthusiasm is like a marketing tool. As people tend to look up at celebrities and admire them they start associating this with good things and I think this is why they adopted such styles for chatbots.
bengale 2y ago
A more charitable scenario might be that they hire the voice actor and it sounds a bit like her. Someone suggests why don't we just get Scarlett to do it properly, wouldn't that be cooler? They reach out and she says no. They decide to continue with the one that sounds a bit like her.
- jrm4 2y ago
  Genuine question; Why in the world would one expect the more charitable scenario?
  - glenstein 2y ago
    It's just a best practice that serves as a healthy counterbalance to cognitive biases, that might otherwise urge us to convict without evidence. It's not necessarily what will prove true at the end of the day but I think we owe people the presumption of innocence.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - rangerelf 2y ago
      Is it necessarily a bad bias to assume OpenAI is still behaving as it's been behaving during its entire history: recklessly taking other people's IP?
      - glenstein 2y ago
        I think the way I would split the difference here is that your point should inform how we think about regulation and investigation. How we write rules, how we decide to proceed in terms of investigating things. But when it comes to specific questions that hinge on evidence, I think you have to maintain the typical presumption of innocence, just to balance out the possibilities of mob psychology getting out of control.
      - TeMPOraL 2y ago
ActionHank 2y ago
This will be used as a template by the entertainment industry to screw over so many people.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Uehreka 2y ago
  How? This kind of thing is already illegal. If I’m producing a commercial for Joe’s Hot Dogs, and I hire a voice actor who sounds like Morgan Freeman, and he never says “I’m Morgan Freeman” but he’s the main voice in the commercial and the cartoon character he’s voicing looks like Morgan Freeman… well, many consumers will be confused into thinking Morgan Freeman likes Joe’s Hot Dogs, and that’s a violation of Morgan Freeman’s trademark.
  - kylebenzle 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - throwawaymaths 2y ago
    no, that's definitely not illegal. Voices are not trademarkable, only jingles (melody, words + tone), and of course specific recordings of voices are copyrighted. The ONLY way they get in trouble is if they claim to be Morgan Freeman.
    - zerocrates 2y ago
      "Trademark" is not the correct way to talk about it, but commercial use of an impersonation can be a breach of the right of publicity, even if they don't actually say they're the person.
    - thehappypm 2y ago
      A reasonable person would assume that the voice in the commercial is Morgan Freeman, which could be very problematic for the commercial maker.
kylebenzle 2y ago
[flagged]
freejazz 2y ago
> they gave it another go, probably ready to offer more money, she still refused, but in the end, it didn't change a thing. That's not what she said happened. She said they released it anyway before she and Sam could connect, after Sam had reached out, for the second time, two days prior to the release.

gnicholas 2y ago

Agreed — seems like they had a plan, and probably talked extensively with Legal about how to develop and execute the plan to give themselves plausible deniability. The tweet was inadvisable, and undoubtedly not part of the actual plan (unless it was to get PR).

safety1st 2y ago
> unless it was to get PR I think this possibility doesn't receive enough attention, there is a class of people who've figured out that they can say the most scandalous things online and it's a net positive because it generates so much exposure. (As a lowly middle class employee you can't do this - you just get fired and go broke - but at a certain level of wealth and power you're immune from that.) It is the old PT Barnum principle, "They can say whatever they want about me as long as they spell my name right." Guys like Trump and Musk know exactly what they're doing. Why wouldn't Sam? Johansson's complaint is starting to look a little shaky especially if you remove that "her" Tweet from the equation. I wouldn't put this past Altman at all, he knows exactly what happened and what didn't inside OpenAI, so maybe he knew she didn't have a case and decided to play Sociopathic 3D Chess with her (and beat her in one round)
- repeekad 2y ago
  As a lowly middle class employee it could be interpreted externally as “representing the company” which is why you see disclaimers like “all views are my own” on some social media profiles. Sam is the company, so they can’t get mad at him, and beyond that he’s a private individual saying whatever he wants on social media without lying. In order to sue, there need to be damages, and if they didn’t copy the voice then the rest doesn’t matter, which sam and team clearly knew and were fast to work with the news. I agree that smart people take advantage of what they can get away with, but this controversy couldn’t have turned out better for increasing brand awareness good or bad (as you say, just like trump and musk know how to do)
- lupire 2y ago
  Johansson might not win a lawsuit, but she isn't looking bad at all. She is totally standup in the Arts vs BigTech AI cultural battle. (See also, Apple's recent iPad crushes all artist material" commercial.) Nothing in this article changes the essence of her complaint. The only real, though partial, rebuttal to her is that OpenAI copied a work product she did for a movie, and the movie was was more than her voice, so it's not totally her own work. So maybe the movie team as a whole has a stronger complaint than the voice actor alone. She didn't lose any game of wits. She just got done dirty by someone who got away with it. She doesn't need money from them. She has respect from people who matter, SAM and OpenAI behaved badly like big tech always does. If OpenAI permanently stops using Johansson-like Sky voice, she'll win what she wanted. Of course, anyone whose voice sounds like an AI has the unpleasantness of that experience, and a rich person is more able to endure it than a regular Johansson.
visarga 2y ago
I am sure it was for free PR. Streisand effect trap for ScarJo.
- z7 2y ago
  They removed ChatGPT's most popular voice in response, causing anger among many of their customers... for PR?
  - visarga 2y ago
    I can't say much about that particular voice because I almost never used chatGPT's voices. They are too slow. I need 1.5x speeds even if I have to use a worse voice. I am a TTS power user, listening to all online text since 2010s. Maybe GPT-4o has a more flexible voice, perhaps you can just ask it to speak faster.
    - gnicholas 2y ago
      They also need to have a terse mode, to avoid all the throat-clearing that I've seen in videos.

dingclancy 2y ago

Sure but Skye is still not SJ.

jorvi 2y ago

> In the end, someone probably felt like it's a bit too dodgy as it resemblance was uncanny What if it wasn’t a computer voice model but rather a real-life voice actress that you could pay a few cents to try to imitate Scarlett Johansson’s voice as best as she could? That’s effectively what’s happening here, and it isn’t illegal. It guess it also leads to the bigger question: do celebrities own their particular frequency range? Is no one allowed to publicly sound like them? Feels like the AACS DVD encryption key controversy all-over again.

krisoft 2y ago
> That’s effectively what’s happening here, and it isn’t illegal. It is more complicated than that. Check out Midler v. Ford Motor Co, or Waits V. Frito Lay.
- theultdev 2y ago
  Ford hired impersonators, she's not an impersonator, that's her real voice. She's allowed to be a voice actor using her real voice. Your can point to the "Her" tweet, but it's a pretty flimsy argument.
  - senorrib 2y ago
    Whether the actor was an impersonator or not is still up to debate. I can see an argument being made when you consider the entire context.
    - theultdev 2y ago
      I don't see any argument considering the entire context, care to explain?
  - Matticus_Rex 2y ago
    This is correct, and is very different from both the Midler and Waits cases. The courts are never going to tell a voice actor she can't use her real voice because she sounds too much like a famous person. And besides, it sounds more like Rashida Jones anyway. It's clearly not an impersonation.

lupusreal 2y ago

> In the end, someone probably felt like it's a bit too dodgy as it resemblance was uncanny, they gave it another go, probably ready to offer more money, she still refused, That was just a few days before launch, right? What was their plan if she said yes at that point? Continue using the "not-her" voice but say it was her? Or did they also have her voice already cloned by then and just needed to flip a switch?

prmoustache 2y ago
> Continue using the "not-her" voice but say it was her? Or did they also have her voice already cloned by then and just needed to flip a switch? One or the other. It doesn't really matter as SJ herself would not have necessarily been able to make sure it is not her and not a glitch in how the tech work with her voice.

nardawg99 2y ago

[dead]

Terretta 2y ago

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

wkat4242 2y ago
I think it sounds overly enthusiastic though, to the point that it sounds fake. Very overacted and dramatic. I wouldn't want to chat with that voice. Though admittedly, so does Johansson in "Her". I don't think the voices are very similar but the style is.
- gg82 2y ago
  Just imagine, if these voice chatbots get popular... they will likely change how people talk!
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    I think at the moment it's the opposite: It seems based on how many celebrities talk. When we watch them on TV, youtube, tiktok whatever they're not real people but just playing a role. It's not how they really are in their real life. The overacted enthusiasm is like a marketing tool. As people tend to look up at celebrities and admire them they start associating this with good things and I think this is why they adopted such styles for chatbots.

bengale 2y ago

A more charitable scenario might be that they hire the voice actor and it sounds a bit like her. Someone suggests why don't we just get Scarlett to do it properly, wouldn't that be cooler? They reach out and she says no. They decide to continue with the one that sounds a bit like her.

jrm4 2y ago
Genuine question; Why in the world would one expect the more charitable scenario?
- glenstein 2y ago
  It's just a best practice that serves as a healthy counterbalance to cognitive biases, that might otherwise urge us to convict without evidence. It's not necessarily what will prove true at the end of the day but I think we owe people the presumption of innocence.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - rangerelf 2y ago
    Is it necessarily a bad bias to assume OpenAI is still behaving as it's been behaving during its entire history: recklessly taking other people's IP?
    - glenstein 2y ago
      I think the way I would split the difference here is that your point should inform how we think about regulation and investigation. How we write rules, how we decide to proceed in terms of investigating things. But when it comes to specific questions that hinge on evidence, I think you have to maintain the typical presumption of innocence, just to balance out the possibilities of mob psychology getting out of control.
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago

ActionHank 2y ago

This will be used as a template by the entertainment industry to screw over so many people.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Uehreka 2y ago
How? This kind of thing is already illegal. If I’m producing a commercial for Joe’s Hot Dogs, and I hire a voice actor who sounds like Morgan Freeman, and he never says “I’m Morgan Freeman” but he’s the main voice in the commercial and the cartoon character he’s voicing looks like Morgan Freeman… well, many consumers will be confused into thinking Morgan Freeman likes Joe’s Hot Dogs, and that’s a violation of Morgan Freeman’s trademark.
- kylebenzle 2y ago
  [flagged]
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  no, that's definitely not illegal. Voices are not trademarkable, only jingles (melody, words + tone), and of course specific recordings of voices are copyrighted. The ONLY way they get in trouble is if they claim to be Morgan Freeman.
  - zerocrates 2y ago
    "Trademark" is not the correct way to talk about it, but commercial use of an impersonation can be a breach of the right of publicity, even if they don't actually say they're the person.
  - thehappypm 2y ago
    A reasonable person would assume that the voice in the commercial is Morgan Freeman, which could be very problematic for the commercial maker.

kylebenzle 2y ago

[flagged]

freejazz 2y ago

> they gave it another go, probably ready to offer more money, she still refused, but in the end, it didn't change a thing. That's not what she said happened. She said they released it anyway before she and Sam could connect, after Sam had reached out, for the second time, two days prior to the release.