8 ms·

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

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.
    - nicce 2y ago
      We would not see these headlines, if they never asked her and never mentioned her. Then it would be just voice of some voice actress which might or might not sound like Scarlett.
    - CRConrad 2y ago
      But he DID tweet the ref to the movie, so that's settled.
- nicce 2y ago
  It is not about the voice. Rather using the fame of known actress to boost the product. If your inner motive is to sound like her because she is well-known, differences in voice does not matter much.
  - JCharante 2y ago
    The voice was called Sky and OpenAI wasn't using her likeness to promote the voice or product. She isn't that well known, I didn't even know she was in Her. There's 1 billion English speakers, there are going to be voice overlaps.
    - nicce 2y ago
      The issue is that they contacted her and advertised based on her. They clearly wanted it to sound like her. Now, that it sounded like her, there is a reason to make conclusions about OpenAI's real motives.
      - talldayo 2y ago
        It's such an easy lesson to learn, here: if you are a founder or in any position where your speech relative to a product or service matters, get your ass off Twitter!
      - pseudosavant 2y ago
        How did they advertise this as being SJ? It is worth pointing out that Sky kind of sounded like the voice from Her, not SJ. The voice in Her is a voice SJ did for that movie. It isn’t her normal speaking voice. Does she get to own the likeness of every kind of voice she’s made, or could make?
        emptyfile 2y ago
        [dead]
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > How did they advertise this as being SJ? Altman tweeted a reference to Her. (Literally just that text.)
- apetrovic 2y ago
  So if I have a company that sells, say, manure, I can search and hire a voice actress that sounds exactly like Scarlett to promote me in radio ads? And write a tweet that vaguely implies that it's really her?
  - sebzim4500 2y ago
    Yes to the first bit, no to the second. I don't think a reasonable person would interpret Sam's tweet as claiming that Scarlett recorded the voice.
    - haiku2077 2y ago
      There's legal precedent against the first one. Tom Waits successfully sued Frito Lay after they used a Tom Waits soundalike in a commercial. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-st...
      - 93po 2y ago
        if i recall that only won because they contacted Tom first and he said no, which isn't what happened with OAI/SJ
- foobar_______ 2y ago
  Exactly. I barely know who this actress is. To me, it sounds like the tens of thousands of other white american voices. How is the remotely too similar?
mondrian 2y ago
Well as the article states, there’s legal precedent protecting actors from having their voices “impersonated” by other actors. The fact that Altman tweeted “her” and contacted Johansson can make the case for the intent to impersonate.
- Pedro_Ribeiro 2y ago
  What if that's just the VA's natural voice? Must she stop doing VA?
  - blitzar 2y ago
    No she just has to do so without promoting it as having been done by Scarlett Johansson.
    - Pedro_Ribeiro 2y ago
      It wasn't? None of the people I know thought it was Scarlett Johansson. When Altman tweeted "her" I just thought: "wow, these voices sound really realistic, kinda like the movie" Is this lawsuit worthy?
    - Sebb767 2y ago
      Except there wasn't any promotion. The only thing close would be Sams tweet, but this was not an official statement and could easily be explained to refer to the concept of voice assistants in general. The fact that SJ was contacted twice was actually publicized by SJ and not OpenAI.
      - sumedh 2y ago
        > The only thing close would be Sams tweet, but this was not an official statement How is a tweet from the CEO not an official statement?
        theultdev 2y ago
        it's the CEO's personal statement. but yes, even a personal statement may have some value in a case, but you ignored the second part of the GP's criticism. you're reaching that the tweet of the poster of "Her" meant "hey guys, this is voiced by SJ" it simply could mean that "hey guys, it sounds as good as the voice assistant from Her" it is voice assistant software after all... mind reading a tweet does not make a good case, especially with the timeline noted in TFA.
borispavlovic 2y ago
[flagged]
- JimDabell 2y ago
  Because the guidelines say: > Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. > Assume good faith. > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
column 2y ago
It's not a question of owning all voices that sound like her, it's a question of "are customers deceived into thinking it is her" and "does it affect SJ negatively to be associated with this sound alike" when her income comes partly from her distinctive voice (much like Morgan Freeman). Sam Altman tweeting "Her" right before the announcements is what builds the case for SJ. Imagine we hired a Leo Messi look alike and made him play football badly or something worse, if viewers can clearly tell it's not him it falls under parody but if we use camera trickery to keep a fooling doubt, we could be in legal trouble.
- johtso 2y ago
  I think Morgan Freeman is a useful comparison to make. Imitations of his voice have been used in a lot of political campaign videos (not sure how many of them got permission). An imitation of his voice was also used in a UK "morethan" advert where they did seek permission and pay him. Another highly popular AI voice would be David Attenborough, used in any number of videos.
  - thehappypm 2y ago
    Random TikTokers will use AI that sounds like a celebrity, and they get away with it. There are many reasons why it's not a big fuss. They're not really selling a product directly, so it could be considered a fair use, unlike ChatGPT which is a paid product (they're literally selling the voice as a feature). There is also the intent; a Morgan Freeman AI voice on a random TikTok video is obvious to a reasonable person to not actually be his real voice, so you can't really make any sort of claim that they're masquerading him as actually saying whatever the script is. It's just for fun. And finally you can't really sue thousands and thousands of TikTokers.
kleiba 2y ago
But is that the point? Here is a relevant precedence, for instance, that may or may not change your mind: Tom Waits is a singer known for his raspy singing voice. Back in the late 1980s, Frito-Lay, Inc., the makes of Doritos, thought it was a great idea to run an ad in which the music had the atmosphere and feel of a Tom Waits song. Except the professional singer they hired for that got the job done a bit too well: the sounds of his voice in the commercial was so close to Tom Waits' work (he had for ten years sang in a band covering Tom Waits songs) that in November 1988, Waits successfully sued Frito-Lay and the advertising company Tracy-Locke Inc., for voice misappropriation under California law and false endorsement under the Lanham Act [1]. Now, when you hear Tom Waits speak in interviews, I find that his voice does not sound nearly as raspy as in his performances. But the point is that it does not matter so much whether OpenAI used the actual voice of Johansson or hired someone to imitate her performance. Given the fact that Johansson was initially contacted by OpenAI to provide her voice and declined, we can surely assume that the selection of the particular voice actress they ended up using was no coincidence. [1] http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/communications/waits.html http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/communications...
- ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
  >Given the fact that Johansson was initially contacted by OpenAI to provide her voice and declined This order is wrong according to the article, the VA was contracted before ever reaching out to SJ.g Additionally here is a relevant anecdote, for instance, that may or may not change your mind? >In a statement from the Sky actress provided by her agent, she wrote that at times the backlash “feels personal being that it’s just my natural voice and I’ve never been compared to her by the people who do know me closely.” It would suck to be blacklisted from your career because your voice may sound too similar to another famous person, if viewed from a certain light.
  - madaxe_again 2y ago
    Clearly we need mandatory laryngeal surgery for anyone who sounds like anyone else. Also if you look like someone else, well, plastic surgery or an hood for you.
newaccount74 2y ago
> because she was in fact directed to act like that It's still Scarlet Johansons voice and acting. The same role with the same lines read by different actors would be very different. Imagine for example that they would have cast Tilda Swinton for Samantha. Even with the same script it would probably end up a very different character. Actors aren't interchangeable. It's very clear that OpenAI was trying to make ChatGPT sound like Samantha from Her. Whether they used Scarlet Johansons voice to train, or excerpts from the movie, or had writers come up with typical responses that sound similar to Samantha are details, and it's up to the lawyers to figure out whether this is legal or not. But the undisputable fact is that OpenAI took heavy inspiration from a movie, and did so without permission. You could argue that taking inspiration from a popular movie is fair game, but I'm not sure where the line is between "inspiration" and a blatant rip-off.
- jes5199 2y ago
  in fact, the movie was originally recorded with Samantha Morton doing the voice of the AI, but she was replaced with Johansson last minute!
  - newaccount74 2y ago
    Really? Are there any leaks of the original version? I would love to see the difference.
    - jes5199 2y ago
      I don’t think it’s been leaked. I could have sworn that I’ve seen one scene with the original voice on like a DVD special feature, but I can’t find anything online
beefnugs 2y ago
The point is : for a little podcast to use some AI to make a couple of ephemeral jokes about real people should absolutely be allowed and might be one of the few moral use cases of AI. (see dudesy podcast humor like george carlin standup and tom brady standup) But for a massive tech company, to fuck over an individual artist in such a blatantly disrespectful way is hugely different.

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.
  - nicce 2y ago
    We would not see these headlines, if they never asked her and never mentioned her. Then it would be just voice of some voice actress which might or might not sound like Scarlett.
  - CRConrad 2y ago
    But he DID tweet the ref to the movie, so that's settled.
nicce 2y ago
It is not about the voice. Rather using the fame of known actress to boost the product. If your inner motive is to sound like her because she is well-known, differences in voice does not matter much.
- JCharante 2y ago
  The voice was called Sky and OpenAI wasn't using her likeness to promote the voice or product. She isn't that well known, I didn't even know she was in Her. There's 1 billion English speakers, there are going to be voice overlaps.
  - nicce 2y ago
    The issue is that they contacted her and advertised based on her. They clearly wanted it to sound like her. Now, that it sounded like her, there is a reason to make conclusions about OpenAI's real motives.
    - talldayo 2y ago
      It's such an easy lesson to learn, here: if you are a founder or in any position where your speech relative to a product or service matters, get your ass off Twitter!
    - pseudosavant 2y ago
      How did they advertise this as being SJ? It is worth pointing out that Sky kind of sounded like the voice from Her, not SJ. The voice in Her is a voice SJ did for that movie. It isn’t her normal speaking voice. Does she get to own the likeness of every kind of voice she’s made, or could make?
      - emptyfile 2y ago
        [dead]
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > How did they advertise this as being SJ? Altman tweeted a reference to Her. (Literally just that text.)
apetrovic 2y ago
So if I have a company that sells, say, manure, I can search and hire a voice actress that sounds exactly like Scarlett to promote me in radio ads? And write a tweet that vaguely implies that it's really her?
- sebzim4500 2y ago
  Yes to the first bit, no to the second. I don't think a reasonable person would interpret Sam's tweet as claiming that Scarlett recorded the voice.
  - haiku2077 2y ago
    There's legal precedent against the first one. Tom Waits successfully sued Frito Lay after they used a Tom Waits soundalike in a commercial. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-st...
    - 93po 2y ago
      if i recall that only won because they contacted Tom first and he said no, which isn't what happened with OAI/SJ
foobar_______ 2y ago
Exactly. I barely know who this actress is. To me, it sounds like the tens of thousands of other white american voices. How is the remotely too similar?

mondrian 2y ago

Well as the article states, there’s legal precedent protecting actors from having their voices “impersonated” by other actors. The fact that Altman tweeted “her” and contacted Johansson can make the case for the intent to impersonate.

Pedro_Ribeiro 2y ago
What if that's just the VA's natural voice? Must she stop doing VA?
- blitzar 2y ago
  No she just has to do so without promoting it as having been done by Scarlett Johansson.
  - Pedro_Ribeiro 2y ago
    It wasn't? None of the people I know thought it was Scarlett Johansson. When Altman tweeted "her" I just thought: "wow, these voices sound really realistic, kinda like the movie" Is this lawsuit worthy?
  - Sebb767 2y ago
    Except there wasn't any promotion. The only thing close would be Sams tweet, but this was not an official statement and could easily be explained to refer to the concept of voice assistants in general. The fact that SJ was contacted twice was actually publicized by SJ and not OpenAI.
    - sumedh 2y ago
      > The only thing close would be Sams tweet, but this was not an official statement How is a tweet from the CEO not an official statement?
      - theultdev 2y ago
        it's the CEO's personal statement. but yes, even a personal statement may have some value in a case, but you ignored the second part of the GP's criticism. you're reaching that the tweet of the poster of "Her" meant "hey guys, this is voiced by SJ" it simply could mean that "hey guys, it sounds as good as the voice assistant from Her" it is voice assistant software after all... mind reading a tweet does not make a good case, especially with the timeline noted in TFA.

borispavlovic 2y ago

[flagged]

JimDabell 2y ago
Because the guidelines say: > Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. > Assume good faith. > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

column 2y ago

It's not a question of owning all voices that sound like her, it's a question of "are customers deceived into thinking it is her" and "does it affect SJ negatively to be associated with this sound alike" when her income comes partly from her distinctive voice (much like Morgan Freeman). Sam Altman tweeting "Her" right before the announcements is what builds the case for SJ. Imagine we hired a Leo Messi look alike and made him play football badly or something worse, if viewers can clearly tell it's not him it falls under parody but if we use camera trickery to keep a fooling doubt, we could be in legal trouble.

johtso 2y ago
I think Morgan Freeman is a useful comparison to make. Imitations of his voice have been used in a lot of political campaign videos (not sure how many of them got permission). An imitation of his voice was also used in a UK "morethan" advert where they did seek permission and pay him. Another highly popular AI voice would be David Attenborough, used in any number of videos.
- thehappypm 2y ago
  Random TikTokers will use AI that sounds like a celebrity, and they get away with it. There are many reasons why it's not a big fuss. They're not really selling a product directly, so it could be considered a fair use, unlike ChatGPT which is a paid product (they're literally selling the voice as a feature). There is also the intent; a Morgan Freeman AI voice on a random TikTok video is obvious to a reasonable person to not actually be his real voice, so you can't really make any sort of claim that they're masquerading him as actually saying whatever the script is. It's just for fun. And finally you can't really sue thousands and thousands of TikTokers.

kleiba 2y ago

But is that the point? Here is a relevant precedence, for instance, that may or may not change your mind: Tom Waits is a singer known for his raspy singing voice. Back in the late 1980s, Frito-Lay, Inc., the makes of Doritos, thought it was a great idea to run an ad in which the music had the atmosphere and feel of a Tom Waits song. Except the professional singer they hired for that got the job done a bit too well: the sounds of his voice in the commercial was so close to Tom Waits' work (he had for ten years sang in a band covering Tom Waits songs) that in November 1988, Waits successfully sued Frito-Lay and the advertising company Tracy-Locke Inc., for voice misappropriation under California law and false endorsement under the Lanham Act [1]. Now, when you hear Tom Waits speak in interviews, I find that his voice does not sound nearly as raspy as in his performances. But the point is that it does not matter so much whether OpenAI used the actual voice of Johansson or hired someone to imitate her performance. Given the fact that Johansson was initially contacted by OpenAI to provide her voice and declined, we can surely assume that the selection of the particular voice actress they ended up using was no coincidence. [1] http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/communications/waits.html http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/communications...

ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
>Given the fact that Johansson was initially contacted by OpenAI to provide her voice and declined This order is wrong according to the article, the VA was contracted before ever reaching out to SJ.g Additionally here is a relevant anecdote, for instance, that may or may not change your mind? >In a statement from the Sky actress provided by her agent, she wrote that at times the backlash “feels personal being that it’s just my natural voice and I’ve never been compared to her by the people who do know me closely.” It would suck to be blacklisted from your career because your voice may sound too similar to another famous person, if viewed from a certain light.
- madaxe_again 2y ago
  Clearly we need mandatory laryngeal surgery for anyone who sounds like anyone else. Also if you look like someone else, well, plastic surgery or an hood for you.

newaccount74 2y ago

> because she was in fact directed to act like that It's still Scarlet Johansons voice and acting. The same role with the same lines read by different actors would be very different. Imagine for example that they would have cast Tilda Swinton for Samantha. Even with the same script it would probably end up a very different character. Actors aren't interchangeable. It's very clear that OpenAI was trying to make ChatGPT sound like Samantha from Her. Whether they used Scarlet Johansons voice to train, or excerpts from the movie, or had writers come up with typical responses that sound similar to Samantha are details, and it's up to the lawyers to figure out whether this is legal or not. But the undisputable fact is that OpenAI took heavy inspiration from a movie, and did so without permission. You could argue that taking inspiration from a popular movie is fair game, but I'm not sure where the line is between "inspiration" and a blatant rip-off.

jes5199 2y ago
in fact, the movie was originally recorded with Samantha Morton doing the voice of the AI, but she was replaced with Johansson last minute!
- newaccount74 2y ago
  Really? Are there any leaks of the original version? I would love to see the difference.
  - jes5199 2y ago
    I don’t think it’s been leaked. I could have sworn that I’ve seen one scene with the original voice on like a DVD special feature, but I can’t find anything online

beefnugs 2y ago

The point is : for a little podcast to use some AI to make a couple of ephemeral jokes about real people should absolutely be allowed and might be one of the few moral use cases of AI. (see dudesy podcast humor like george carlin standup and tom brady standup) But for a massive tech company, to fuck over an individual artist in such a blatantly disrespectful way is hugely different.