5 ms·

> So its: ask Johansson, get declined, ask casting directors for the type of voice actors they are interested in, listened to 400 voices, choose one that sounds

> So its: ask Johansson, get declined, ask casting directors for the type of voice actors they are interested in, listened to 400 voices, choose one that sounds like the actor Except it doesn't sound like Johansson, I don't know why people keep saying this. At best, the voice has a couple of similar characteristics, but I didn't think for one second that it was her. Can James Earl Jones sue if someone uses a voice actor with a deep voice?

sanderjd 2y ago
If they ask James Earl Jones to do it, he says no, and then they hire someone with a deep voice in order to sound like him? Yes.
- naasking 2y ago
  Except it doesn't sound like her, and that's not even the correct sequence of events.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    It absolutely does sound like her, in this context where she is the voice in the AI voice companion zeitgeist. In just the same way that if the context were "magical space villain in a black mask and cape" and someone was hired with a deep voice, it would be a clear rip-off of James Earl Jones. And it requires a level of credulity that I find impossible to sustain to think that "the sequence of events" here doesn't start with "let's have a voice actor casting call and pick a voice that sounds like the one in the movie about this that everyone loves". I won't, however, be shocked if nobody ever wrote that down in a medium that is subject to legal discovery.
DoctorOetker 2y ago
Also looking from the perspective of the lesser known voice actress, does Scarlett Johansson have the right to trample the lesser known voice artists future job opportunities by intimidating her previous employers? Imagine being a potential future employer of the lesser known artist, would you dare hire her in the face that Johansson's lawyers might come after you? Is this lesser known voice artist now doomed to find a job in a different sector? Voice archetypes are much much older than Johansson, so by symmetry arguments, could those earlier in line sue Johansson in turn? When a strong person is offered a job at the docks, but refuses, and if then later another strong person accepts the job, can the first one sue the employer for "finding another strong man"? At some point the courts are being asked to uphold exceptionalist treatment and effectuate it on tax-payers dollars moving executive branches in case of non-compliance.
- bnralt 2y ago
  > Also looking from the perspective of the lesser known voice actress, does Scarlett Johansson have the right to trample the lesser known voice artists future job opportunities by intimidating her previous employers? Right, it would be one thing if there was evidence that OpenAI asked the actress to imitate Johansson. But people are saying that using this voice actress at all without Johansson's permission shouldn't be legal, which is a bizarre claim. If someone thinks my voice sounds similar to a celebrities, now that celebrity owns my voice? In any other situation, everyone here would think such a standard would be completely outrageous. (For what it's worth, I didn't find the Sky voice to sound anything like Scarlett Johannson personally)
  - naasking 2y ago
    Exactly, everyone claiming so hasn't actually listened to it [1], or they're basing their opinion off of "suspicious correlations", like that Altman mentioned "her" just before releasing a voice-interactive AI assistant. [1] https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653 https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653
    - scotty79 2y ago
      Maybe because it's the most famous recent good movie about voice interface AI? He's wasn't citing Lucy or whatever other garbage.
    - brvsft 2y ago
      Some may have listened to it and just have such a poor opinion of OpenAI that they allow it to cloud their judgment. Both voices sound like white women in a similar age group, must be Scarlett Johansson.
      - naasking 2y ago
        > Some may have listened to it and just have such a poor opinion of OpenAI that they allow it to cloud their judgment I think that's exactly it, or they're critical of all corporations, and they're jumping all over suspicious timelines, like that they tried to convince her 9 months ago and again 2 days before the new release as some kind of evidence of malfeasance.
Terretta 2y ago
If I play the voices back to back, nobody thinks they're the same person. If I ask which one is SJ, people that have seen her films know, those who don't, don't. (Hint, only one sounds hoarse like early smoker voice and self-assured even in the 'Her' role, only one sounds impossibly 2020s valley girl chipper and eager to please.) Sure seems like all the dogpiling last week either didn't do a basic listen or ignored it, as it's much better for click farming to mock the cock of the walk.
- naasking 2y ago
  > only one sounds impossibly 2020s valley girl chipper and eager to please. I immediately thought "grade school teacher", although I was listening to the clip where she was telling a story.
latexr 2y ago
> Except it doesn't sound like Johansson, I don't know why people keep saying this. Would you ever say “except strawberries aren’t tasty, I don’t know why people keep saying this”? Maybe it doesn’t sound like Johansson to you, but it does sound like her to a lot of people. Worse, evidence points to Altman wanting you to make that connection. It’s trying to sound like her performance in one specific movie.
- naasking 2y ago
  > Maybe it doesn’t sound like Johansson to you, but it does sound like her to a lot of people. I guarantee you that nobody who's ever heard her voice actually thinks that, go on: https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653 https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653 > Worse, evidence points to Altman wanting you to make that connection. It’s trying to sound like her performance in one specific movie. There is no such evidence.
  - sodality2 2y ago
    For ten seconds I thought “Wow, that is strikingly familiar to her”. Then I realized that was the example from the movie. I tend to agree, not identical or even close but definitely some similarities. I don’t see a jury ruling that they’re too similar
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - latexr 2y ago
    > I guarantee you You definitely do not. Think of the craziest conspiracy theory you can, one that has been debunked countless times, and I’ll show you people that have been shown the evidence yet still believe the conspiracy. This case is not a conspiracy theory. But it is something where you disagree with a popular opinion. The point is that you’re projecting your thought pattern and way of understanding the world into everyone else instead of being empathetic and putting yourself on the other side. Look, I get it. I also thought that the outrage about Apple’s recent ad was disproportionate. But I’m not going to go out of my way to defend the ad. I don’t give a hoot that a massive corporation is getting a bit of bad press for something largely inconsequential, I just wish the outrage had been directed at something which actually matters and go on with my life. > There is no such evidence. With this kind of dismissal, I don’t think it’s worth continuing the conversation. I’ll leave you to it. Have a genuinely good weekend.
cthalupa 2y ago
I've been saying this for days, and I'm pretty firmly in the OpenAI critic camp. The only reason people think it sounds like her is because they've biased themselves into it because of all the context surrounding it.
- latexr 2y ago
  > they've biased themselves into it Maybe the fault for that belongs to the company who tried to create the association in your mind by using a similar voice and tweeting about that one movie with the voice. That’s basic advertising. They knew what they were doing. It’s just that it may have backfired.
  - cthalupa 2y ago
    I don't think it's a particularly similar voice to begin with, and the technology in general is very 'Her' like - which would also explain why they reached out to ScarJo to do an additional voice. I think the tweet was dumb but in my layperson's understanding of the law and the situation, I doubt OpenAI is at any huge legal risk here.
    - brianjking 2y ago
      It doesn't really matter their legal risk here, IMO. What matters is the court of public opinion in this case. Even if they are able to show irrefutable proof that it wasn't ScarJo and is in fact another person entirely it will not matter. This is one of those times that no matter what the facts show people will be dug in one way or another.
    - CRConrad 2y ago
      You seem to be missing the point: It wasn't that "people ... biased themselves into it"; it was the name, the ex-board-member's direct reference to Johansson, and Altman's tweet that did that.
sandworm101 2y ago
>> Except it doesn't sound like Johansson, I don't know why people keep saying this. At best, the voice has a couple of similar characteristics, To add to this, the legal standard isn't whether it sounds "like" her. It has to be a replication of her voice. Millions of people may sound or look "like" another person, that doesn't mean they are a copy of that person. The best case study in voices imho is David Attenborough. He has a distinct voice that many have sought to replicate. But you know who else had that voice? Richard Attenborough (the actor from Jurassic Park). They are brothers. Sadly, Richard recently passed. Their voices are unsurprisingly nearly interchangeable, along with a thousand other people with similar life stories. So who gets to own complete rights to the distinctive "Attenborough" voice? In any other area of intellectual property the answer is simple: nobody. It doesn't exist and/or was created by people long before any living Attenborough walked the earth. Similarly, courts ruled that GTA did not steal from Lindsay Lohan. One cannot own the image of generic California blonde in a red bikini. So why should Johansson own sexy/breathy voice of with a nondistinctive accent?
strangescript 2y ago
This. Its what people want to hear. If you heard that voice in a vacuum with no context and asked someone what famous person is it, I doubt many people would say Johansson. Some, sure, but not the majority. The only thing Sam did wrong was play too fast and loose with the implication of "Her" given that he had been talking to ScarJo. Lawyers should have told him to just STFU about it.
bee_rider 2y ago
I was confused because it doesn’t really sound much like her normal voice, and I didn’t see Her. So I looked it up—it sounds a little bit more like her voice in her… the movie where she’s adding some AI-like affectations to her voice. I guess they decided to remove it for PR reasons or something.

sanderjd 2y ago

If they ask James Earl Jones to do it, he says no, and then they hire someone with a deep voice in order to sound like him? Yes.

naasking 2y ago
Except it doesn't sound like her, and that's not even the correct sequence of events.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- sanderjd 2y ago
  It absolutely does sound like her, in this context where she is the voice in the AI voice companion zeitgeist. In just the same way that if the context were "magical space villain in a black mask and cape" and someone was hired with a deep voice, it would be a clear rip-off of James Earl Jones. And it requires a level of credulity that I find impossible to sustain to think that "the sequence of events" here doesn't start with "let's have a voice actor casting call and pick a voice that sounds like the one in the movie about this that everyone loves". I won't, however, be shocked if nobody ever wrote that down in a medium that is subject to legal discovery.

DoctorOetker 2y ago

Also looking from the perspective of the lesser known voice actress, does Scarlett Johansson have the right to trample the lesser known voice artists future job opportunities by intimidating her previous employers? Imagine being a potential future employer of the lesser known artist, would you dare hire her in the face that Johansson's lawyers might come after you? Is this lesser known voice artist now doomed to find a job in a different sector? Voice archetypes are much much older than Johansson, so by symmetry arguments, could those earlier in line sue Johansson in turn? When a strong person is offered a job at the docks, but refuses, and if then later another strong person accepts the job, can the first one sue the employer for "finding another strong man"? At some point the courts are being asked to uphold exceptionalist treatment and effectuate it on tax-payers dollars moving executive branches in case of non-compliance.

bnralt 2y ago
> Also looking from the perspective of the lesser known voice actress, does Scarlett Johansson have the right to trample the lesser known voice artists future job opportunities by intimidating her previous employers? Right, it would be one thing if there was evidence that OpenAI asked the actress to imitate Johansson. But people are saying that using this voice actress at all without Johansson's permission shouldn't be legal, which is a bizarre claim. If someone thinks my voice sounds similar to a celebrities, now that celebrity owns my voice? In any other situation, everyone here would think such a standard would be completely outrageous. (For what it's worth, I didn't find the Sky voice to sound anything like Scarlett Johannson personally)
- naasking 2y ago
  Exactly, everyone claiming so hasn't actually listened to it [1], or they're basing their opinion off of "suspicious correlations", like that Altman mentioned "her" just before releasing a voice-interactive AI assistant. [1] https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653 https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653
  - scotty79 2y ago
    Maybe because it's the most famous recent good movie about voice interface AI? He's wasn't citing Lucy or whatever other garbage.
  - brvsft 2y ago
    Some may have listened to it and just have such a poor opinion of OpenAI that they allow it to cloud their judgment. Both voices sound like white women in a similar age group, must be Scarlett Johansson.
    - naasking 2y ago
      > Some may have listened to it and just have such a poor opinion of OpenAI that they allow it to cloud their judgment I think that's exactly it, or they're critical of all corporations, and they're jumping all over suspicious timelines, like that they tried to convince her 9 months ago and again 2 days before the new release as some kind of evidence of malfeasance.

Terretta 2y ago

If I play the voices back to back, nobody thinks they're the same person. If I ask which one is SJ, people that have seen her films know, those who don't, don't. (Hint, only one sounds hoarse like early smoker voice and self-assured even in the 'Her' role, only one sounds impossibly 2020s valley girl chipper and eager to please.) Sure seems like all the dogpiling last week either didn't do a basic listen or ignored it, as it's much better for click farming to mock the cock of the walk.

naasking 2y ago
> only one sounds impossibly 2020s valley girl chipper and eager to please. I immediately thought "grade school teacher", although I was listening to the clip where she was telling a story.

latexr 2y ago

> Except it doesn't sound like Johansson, I don't know why people keep saying this. Would you ever say “except strawberries aren’t tasty, I don’t know why people keep saying this”? Maybe it doesn’t sound like Johansson to you, but it does sound like her to a lot of people. Worse, evidence points to Altman wanting you to make that connection. It’s trying to sound like her performance in one specific movie.

naasking 2y ago
> Maybe it doesn’t sound like Johansson to you, but it does sound like her to a lot of people. I guarantee you that nobody who's ever heard her voice actually thinks that, go on: https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653 https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653 > Worse, evidence points to Altman wanting you to make that connection. It’s trying to sound like her performance in one specific movie. There is no such evidence.
- sodality2 2y ago
  For ten seconds I thought “Wow, that is strikingly familiar to her”. Then I realized that was the example from the movie. I tend to agree, not identical or even close but definitely some similarities. I don’t see a jury ruling that they’re too similar
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- latexr 2y ago
  > I guarantee you You definitely do not. Think of the craziest conspiracy theory you can, one that has been debunked countless times, and I’ll show you people that have been shown the evidence yet still believe the conspiracy. This case is not a conspiracy theory. But it is something where you disagree with a popular opinion. The point is that you’re projecting your thought pattern and way of understanding the world into everyone else instead of being empathetic and putting yourself on the other side. Look, I get it. I also thought that the outrage about Apple’s recent ad was disproportionate. But I’m not going to go out of my way to defend the ad. I don’t give a hoot that a massive corporation is getting a bit of bad press for something largely inconsequential, I just wish the outrage had been directed at something which actually matters and go on with my life. > There is no such evidence. With this kind of dismissal, I don’t think it’s worth continuing the conversation. I’ll leave you to it. Have a genuinely good weekend.

cthalupa 2y ago

I've been saying this for days, and I'm pretty firmly in the OpenAI critic camp. The only reason people think it sounds like her is because they've biased themselves into it because of all the context surrounding it.

latexr 2y ago
> they've biased themselves into it Maybe the fault for that belongs to the company who tried to create the association in your mind by using a similar voice and tweeting about that one movie with the voice. That’s basic advertising. They knew what they were doing. It’s just that it may have backfired.
- cthalupa 2y ago
  I don't think it's a particularly similar voice to begin with, and the technology in general is very 'Her' like - which would also explain why they reached out to ScarJo to do an additional voice. I think the tweet was dumb but in my layperson's understanding of the law and the situation, I doubt OpenAI is at any huge legal risk here.
  - brianjking 2y ago
    It doesn't really matter their legal risk here, IMO. What matters is the court of public opinion in this case. Even if they are able to show irrefutable proof that it wasn't ScarJo and is in fact another person entirely it will not matter. This is one of those times that no matter what the facts show people will be dug in one way or another.
  - CRConrad 2y ago
    You seem to be missing the point: It wasn't that "people ... biased themselves into it"; it was the name, the ex-board-member's direct reference to Johansson, and Altman's tweet that did that.

sandworm101 2y ago

>> Except it doesn't sound like Johansson, I don't know why people keep saying this. At best, the voice has a couple of similar characteristics, To add to this, the legal standard isn't whether it sounds "like" her. It has to be a replication of her voice. Millions of people may sound or look "like" another person, that doesn't mean they are a copy of that person. The best case study in voices imho is David Attenborough. He has a distinct voice that many have sought to replicate. But you know who else had that voice? Richard Attenborough (the actor from Jurassic Park). They are brothers. Sadly, Richard recently passed. Their voices are unsurprisingly nearly interchangeable, along with a thousand other people with similar life stories. So who gets to own complete rights to the distinctive "Attenborough" voice? In any other area of intellectual property the answer is simple: nobody. It doesn't exist and/or was created by people long before any living Attenborough walked the earth. Similarly, courts ruled that GTA did not steal from Lindsay Lohan. One cannot own the image of generic California blonde in a red bikini. So why should Johansson own sexy/breathy voice of with a nondistinctive accent?

strangescript 2y ago

This. Its what people want to hear. If you heard that voice in a vacuum with no context and asked someone what famous person is it, I doubt many people would say Johansson. Some, sure, but not the majority. The only thing Sam did wrong was play too fast and loose with the implication of "Her" given that he had been talking to ScarJo. Lawyers should have told him to just STFU about it.

bee_rider 2y ago

I was confused because it doesn’t really sound much like her normal voice, and I didn’t see Her. So I looked it up—it sounds a little bit more like her voice in her… the movie where she’s adding some AI-like affectations to her voice. I guess they decided to remove it for PR reasons or something.