6 ms·

> The actress did impersonate Her though. Did she? The article claims that: 1. Multiple people agree that the casting call mentioned nothing about SJ/her 2.

by Ukv 2y ago

> The actress did impersonate Her though. Did she? The article claims that: 1. Multiple people agree that the casting call mentioned nothing about SJ/her 2. The voice actress claims she was not given instructions to imitate SJ/her 3. The actress's natural voice sounds identical to the AI-generated Sky voice I don't personally think it's anywhere near "identical" to SJ's voice. It seems most likely to me that they noticed the similarity in concept afterwards and wanted to try to capitalize on it (hence later contacting SJ), opposed to the other way around.

marcus_holmes 2y ago
No-one had to explicitly say any of that for it to still be an impersonation. Her was a very popular film, and Johansson's voice character was very compelling. They literally could have said nothing and just chosen the voice audition closest to Her unconsciously, because of the reach of the film, and that would still be an impersonation.
- Ukv 2y ago
  > They literally could have said nothing and just chosen the voice audition closest to Her unconsciously, because of the reach of the film, and that would still be an impersonation That's a very broad definition of impersonation, one that does not match the legal definition, and one that would would be incredibly worrying for voice actors whose natural voice happens to fall within a radius of a celebrity's natural voice ("their choice to cast you was unconsciously affected by similarity to a celebrity, therefore [...]")
  - calf 2y ago
    What you're arguing fails to pass the obviousness test ; if I were running the company it would be blankly obvious that the optics would be a problem, so I would start to collect a LOT of paperwork documenting that the casting selection was done without a hint of bias towards a celebrity's impression. Where is that paperwork? The obviousness puts the burden on them to show it. Otherwise your argument lets off not just this scandal but an entire conceptual category of clever sleazy moves that are done "after the fact". It's not the the Kafka trap you're making it out to be.
    - planede 2y ago
      A lot of legal constructs are defined by intent, and intent is always something that is potentially hard to prove. At most the obviousness should the burden of discovery on them, and if they have no records or witnesses that would demonstrate the intent, then they should be in the clear. > I would start to collect a LOT of paperwork documenting that the casting selection was done without a hint of bias towards a celebrity's impression. IMO having records that explicitly mention SJ or Her in any way would be suspicious. IANAL
      - marcus_holmes 2y ago
        So the fact that they tried to recruit SJ (twice) is that evidence that I find suspicious. Plus Altmans tweets. It's not suspicious, it's obvious.
    - Ukv 2y ago
      > if I were running the company it would be blankly obvious that the optics would be a problem, so I would start to collect a LOT of paperwork documenting that the casting selection was done without a hint of bias towards a celebrity's impression. Where is that paperwork? The obviousness puts the burden on them to show it. I think optics-wise the best move at the moment is quelling the speculation that they resorted to a deepfake or impersonator of SJ after being denied by SJ herself. The article works towards this by attesting that it's a real person, speaking in her natural voice, without instruction to imitate SJ, from a casting call not mentioning specifics, casted months prior to contacting SJ. Most PR effort should probably be in giving this as much of a reach as possible among those that saw the original story. Would those doing the casting have the foresight to predict, not just that this situation would emerge, but that there would be a group considering it impersonation for there to be any "hint of bias" towards voices naturally resembling a celebrity in selection between applicants? Moreover, would they consider it important to appeal to this group by altering the process to eliminate that possible bias and providing extensive documentation to prove they have done so, or would they instead see the group as either a small fringe or likely to just take issue to something else regardless?
      - 2y ago
- planede 2y ago
  I think that reaches too far. Intent should be a defining part of impersonation. IANAL and I don't know what the law says.
  - apendleton 2y ago
    Intent on whose part, though? Like, supposing in arguendo that the company's goal was to make the voice sound indistinguishable from SJ's in Her, but they wanted to maintain plausible deniability, so instead cast as wide a net as possible during auditions, happened upon an actor who they thought already sounded indistinguishable from SJ without special instruction, and cast that person solely for that reason. That seems as morally dubious to me as achieving the same deliberate outcome by instruction to the performer.
    - chii 2y ago
      > happened upon an actor who they thought already sounded indistinguishable from SJ without special instruction, and cast that person solely for that reason so who was doing the selecting, and were they instructed to perform their selection this way? If there was a law suit, discovery would reveal emails or any communique that would be evidence of this. If, for some reason, there is _zero_ evidence that this was chosen as a criteria, then it's pretty hard pressed to prove the intent.
- K0balt 2y ago
  SJs voice has some very distinctive characteristics and she has distinctive inflections that she applies. None of that inflection, tonality, or characteristics are present in the chat bot voice. Without those elements, it can be said to be a voice with vaguely similar pitch and accent, but any reasonable “impersonation “ would at least attempt to copy the mannerisms and flairs of the voice they we’re trying to impersonate. Listening to them side by side, the OpenAI voice is more similar to Siri than to SJ. That Sam Altman clearly wanted SJ to do the voice acting is irrelevant, considering the timings and the voice differences. The phone call and tweet were awkward tho.
  - throwthrowuknow 2y ago
    Exactly anyone that listens to both side by side should be able to clearly distinguish them.
- konschubert 2y ago
  I have this sinking feeling that in this whole debate, whatever anyone's position is mostly depends on whether they think it's good that OpenAI exists or not.
  - marcus_holmes 2y ago
    No, I'm happy that OpenAI exists. But alarmed that they're being so mendacious. If they just said "we loved the film, we wanted that feel, SJ wasn't willing, so we went for it anyway. Obviously that's backfired and we're rethinking" then I would have a thousand times more comfort than this corporate back-covering bullshit.
esrauch 2y ago
It sounds more like Rashida Jones than SJ to me. I think part of this PR cycle is also the priming effect, where if you're primed to hear something and then listen you do great it.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  Then OpenAI did the priming by referencing "Her".
itsoktocry 2y ago
>I don't personally think it's anywhere near "identical" to SJ's voice. It seems most likely to me that they noticed the similarity in concept afterwards and wanted to try to capitalize on it (hence later contacting SJ), opposed to the other way around. So your theory is that this was completely coincidental. But after the voice was recorded, they thought, "Wow, it sounds just like the voice of the computer in Her! We should contact that actress and capitalize on it!" That's what you're going with? It doesn't make sense, to me.
- Andrew_nenakhov 2y ago
  > But after the voice was recorded, they thought, ... that it would be even better to have a famous voice from Her than a rather generic female voice they had, but their proposal was declined. Well oops, but SJ, famous as she is, doesn't have a copyright right on all female voices other than her own.
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  I was thinking someone thought "oh that sounds a fair bit like SJ in Her, if we can get SJ onboard, perhaps we can fine-tune what we got to sound like SJ in Her".
- throwaway4aday 2y ago
  Listen to the side by side comparisons. Sky has a deeper voice overall, in the gpt4o demo Sky displays a wider pitch range because the omni model is capable of emotional intonation. Her voice slides quite a bit while emoting but notably doesn't break and when she returns to her normal speaking voice you can hear a very distinct rhotic sound, almost an over-pronounced American accent and she has a tendency towards deepening into vocal fry especially before pauses. I'd describe her voice as mostly in her chest when speaking clearly. Now listen to SJ's Samantha in Her and the first thing you'll notice are the voice breaks and that they break to a higher register with a distinct breathy sound, it's clearly falsetto. SJ seems to have this habit in her normal speaking voice as well but it's not as exaggerated and seems more accidental. Her voice is very much in her head or mask. The biggest commonality I can hear is that they both have a sibilant S and their regional accents are pretty close.
naasking 2y ago
> The actress's natural voice sounds identical to the AI-generated Sky voice No it doesn't.
- Ukv 2y ago
  > > The article claims that: [...] > > 3. The actress's natural voice sounds identical to the AI-generated Sky voice > No it doesn't. That's a verbatim quote from the article (albeit based on brief recordings). I haven't heard the anonymous voice actress's voice myself to corroborate WP's claim, but (unless there's information I'm unaware of) neither have you to claim the opposite.
  - naasking 2y ago
    > That's a verbatim quote from the article The clips are all online for you to listen to them yourself. The article can say what it likes, it's just wrong.
    - naasking 2y ago
      Here, a direct comparison: https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653 https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653
    - Ukv 2y ago
      Just to make sure: have you correctly understood the article's claim? It's saying that the anonymous voice actress's natural voice sounds identical to the AI-generated Sky voice (which implies it has not been altered by OpenAI to sound more like SJ, nor that they had her do some impression beyond her own natural voice). If so, could you link the clips of the voice actress's natural voice, to compare to the AI version? I've searched but was unable to find such clips.
      - throwthrowuknow 2y ago
        The AI voice is what’s in question here and there are plenty of examples, just listen to ones that aren’t intentionally selected to try to create the impression of similarity. Sky has been around for half a year so you don’t have to limit yourself to the tech demo but even if you do if you listen to the whole thing you’ll see the normal speaking voice is very different from ScarJo.
mc32 2y ago
Also sam had a one word tweet: “her.” So it looks like there was something going on.
- throwthrowuknow 2y ago
  It’s an obvious comparison to make for the technology, I don’t think it was meant as “it sounds like ScarJo”
sanderjd 2y ago
This is why things are decided by juries. You may well truly believe this all seems unrelated and above board. But very few people will agree with you when presented with these facts, and it would be hard find them during a jury selection.
skywhopper 2y ago
Who’s making those claims, exactly? That will tell you a lot about their likely veracity.
- Ukv 2y ago
  First two claims are "according to interviews with multiple people involved in the process", direct quotes from the casting call flier, and "documents shared by OpenAI in response to questions from The Washington Post". Given the number of (non-OpenAI) people involved, I think it would be difficult to maintain a lie on these points. Third claim is a comparison carried out by The Washington Post.

by Ukv 2y ago

marcus_holmes 2y ago

No-one had to explicitly say any of that for it to still be an impersonation. Her was a very popular film, and Johansson's voice character was very compelling. They literally could have said nothing and just chosen the voice audition closest to Her unconsciously, because of the reach of the film, and that would still be an impersonation.

Ukv 2y ago
> They literally could have said nothing and just chosen the voice audition closest to Her unconsciously, because of the reach of the film, and that would still be an impersonation That's a very broad definition of impersonation, one that does not match the legal definition, and one that would would be incredibly worrying for voice actors whose natural voice happens to fall within a radius of a celebrity's natural voice ("their choice to cast you was unconsciously affected by similarity to a celebrity, therefore [...]")
- calf 2y ago
  What you're arguing fails to pass the obviousness test ; if I were running the company it would be blankly obvious that the optics would be a problem, so I would start to collect a LOT of paperwork documenting that the casting selection was done without a hint of bias towards a celebrity's impression. Where is that paperwork? The obviousness puts the burden on them to show it. Otherwise your argument lets off not just this scandal but an entire conceptual category of clever sleazy moves that are done "after the fact". It's not the the Kafka trap you're making it out to be.
  - planede 2y ago
    A lot of legal constructs are defined by intent, and intent is always something that is potentially hard to prove. At most the obviousness should the burden of discovery on them, and if they have no records or witnesses that would demonstrate the intent, then they should be in the clear. > I would start to collect a LOT of paperwork documenting that the casting selection was done without a hint of bias towards a celebrity's impression. IMO having records that explicitly mention SJ or Her in any way would be suspicious. IANAL
    - marcus_holmes 2y ago
      So the fact that they tried to recruit SJ (twice) is that evidence that I find suspicious. Plus Altmans tweets. It's not suspicious, it's obvious.
  - Ukv 2y ago
    > if I were running the company it would be blankly obvious that the optics would be a problem, so I would start to collect a LOT of paperwork documenting that the casting selection was done without a hint of bias towards a celebrity's impression. Where is that paperwork? The obviousness puts the burden on them to show it. I think optics-wise the best move at the moment is quelling the speculation that they resorted to a deepfake or impersonator of SJ after being denied by SJ herself. The article works towards this by attesting that it's a real person, speaking in her natural voice, without instruction to imitate SJ, from a casting call not mentioning specifics, casted months prior to contacting SJ. Most PR effort should probably be in giving this as much of a reach as possible among those that saw the original story. Would those doing the casting have the foresight to predict, not just that this situation would emerge, but that there would be a group considering it impersonation for there to be any "hint of bias" towards voices naturally resembling a celebrity in selection between applicants? Moreover, would they consider it important to appeal to this group by altering the process to eliminate that possible bias and providing extensive documentation to prove they have done so, or would they instead see the group as either a small fringe or likely to just take issue to something else regardless?
    - 2y ago
planede 2y ago
I think that reaches too far. Intent should be a defining part of impersonation. IANAL and I don't know what the law says.
- apendleton 2y ago
  Intent on whose part, though? Like, supposing in arguendo that the company's goal was to make the voice sound indistinguishable from SJ's in Her, but they wanted to maintain plausible deniability, so instead cast as wide a net as possible during auditions, happened upon an actor who they thought already sounded indistinguishable from SJ without special instruction, and cast that person solely for that reason. That seems as morally dubious to me as achieving the same deliberate outcome by instruction to the performer.
  - chii 2y ago
    > happened upon an actor who they thought already sounded indistinguishable from SJ without special instruction, and cast that person solely for that reason so who was doing the selecting, and were they instructed to perform their selection this way? If there was a law suit, discovery would reveal emails or any communique that would be evidence of this. If, for some reason, there is _zero_ evidence that this was chosen as a criteria, then it's pretty hard pressed to prove the intent.
K0balt 2y ago
SJs voice has some very distinctive characteristics and she has distinctive inflections that she applies. None of that inflection, tonality, or characteristics are present in the chat bot voice. Without those elements, it can be said to be a voice with vaguely similar pitch and accent, but any reasonable “impersonation “ would at least attempt to copy the mannerisms and flairs of the voice they we’re trying to impersonate. Listening to them side by side, the OpenAI voice is more similar to Siri than to SJ. That Sam Altman clearly wanted SJ to do the voice acting is irrelevant, considering the timings and the voice differences. The phone call and tweet were awkward tho.
- throwthrowuknow 2y ago
  Exactly anyone that listens to both side by side should be able to clearly distinguish them.
konschubert 2y ago
I have this sinking feeling that in this whole debate, whatever anyone's position is mostly depends on whether they think it's good that OpenAI exists or not.
- marcus_holmes 2y ago
  No, I'm happy that OpenAI exists. But alarmed that they're being so mendacious. If they just said "we loved the film, we wanted that feel, SJ wasn't willing, so we went for it anyway. Obviously that's backfired and we're rethinking" then I would have a thousand times more comfort than this corporate back-covering bullshit.

esrauch 2y ago

It sounds more like Rashida Jones than SJ to me. I think part of this PR cycle is also the priming effect, where if you're primed to hear something and then listen you do great it.

actionfromafar 2y ago
Then OpenAI did the priming by referencing "Her".

itsoktocry 2y ago

>I don't personally think it's anywhere near "identical" to SJ's voice. It seems most likely to me that they noticed the similarity in concept afterwards and wanted to try to capitalize on it (hence later contacting SJ), opposed to the other way around. So your theory is that this was completely coincidental. But after the voice was recorded, they thought, "Wow, it sounds just like the voice of the computer in Her! We should contact that actress and capitalize on it!" That's what you're going with? It doesn't make sense, to me.

Andrew_nenakhov 2y ago
> But after the voice was recorded, they thought, ... that it would be even better to have a famous voice from Her than a rather generic female voice they had, but their proposal was declined. Well oops, but SJ, famous as she is, doesn't have a copyright right on all female voices other than her own.
magicalhippo 2y ago
I was thinking someone thought "oh that sounds a fair bit like SJ in Her, if we can get SJ onboard, perhaps we can fine-tune what we got to sound like SJ in Her".
throwaway4aday 2y ago
Listen to the side by side comparisons. Sky has a deeper voice overall, in the gpt4o demo Sky displays a wider pitch range because the omni model is capable of emotional intonation. Her voice slides quite a bit while emoting but notably doesn't break and when she returns to her normal speaking voice you can hear a very distinct rhotic sound, almost an over-pronounced American accent and she has a tendency towards deepening into vocal fry especially before pauses. I'd describe her voice as mostly in her chest when speaking clearly. Now listen to SJ's Samantha in Her and the first thing you'll notice are the voice breaks and that they break to a higher register with a distinct breathy sound, it's clearly falsetto. SJ seems to have this habit in her normal speaking voice as well but it's not as exaggerated and seems more accidental. Her voice is very much in her head or mask. The biggest commonality I can hear is that they both have a sibilant S and their regional accents are pretty close.

naasking 2y ago

> The actress's natural voice sounds identical to the AI-generated Sky voice No it doesn't.

Ukv 2y ago
> > The article claims that: [...] > > 3. The actress's natural voice sounds identical to the AI-generated Sky voice > No it doesn't. That's a verbatim quote from the article (albeit based on brief recordings). I haven't heard the anonymous voice actress's voice myself to corroborate WP's claim, but (unless there's information I'm unaware of) neither have you to claim the opposite.
- naasking 2y ago
  > That's a verbatim quote from the article The clips are all online for you to listen to them yourself. The article can say what it likes, it's just wrong.
  - naasking 2y ago
    Here, a direct comparison: https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653 https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653
  - Ukv 2y ago
    Just to make sure: have you correctly understood the article's claim? It's saying that the anonymous voice actress's natural voice sounds identical to the AI-generated Sky voice (which implies it has not been altered by OpenAI to sound more like SJ, nor that they had her do some impression beyond her own natural voice). If so, could you link the clips of the voice actress's natural voice, to compare to the AI version? I've searched but was unable to find such clips.
    - throwthrowuknow 2y ago
      The AI voice is what’s in question here and there are plenty of examples, just listen to ones that aren’t intentionally selected to try to create the impression of similarity. Sky has been around for half a year so you don’t have to limit yourself to the tech demo but even if you do if you listen to the whole thing you’ll see the normal speaking voice is very different from ScarJo.

mc32 2y ago

Also sam had a one word tweet: “her.” So it looks like there was something going on.

throwthrowuknow 2y ago
It’s an obvious comparison to make for the technology, I don’t think it was meant as “it sounds like ScarJo”

sanderjd 2y ago

This is why things are decided by juries. You may well truly believe this all seems unrelated and above board. But very few people will agree with you when presented with these facts, and it would be hard find them during a jury selection.

skywhopper 2y ago

Who’s making those claims, exactly? That will tell you a lot about their likely veracity.

Ukv 2y ago
First two claims are "according to interviews with multiple people involved in the process", direct quotes from the casting call flier, and "documents shared by OpenAI in response to questions from The Washington Post". Given the number of (non-OpenAI) people involved, I think it would be difficult to maintain a lie on these points. Third claim is a comparison carried out by The Washington Post.