7 ms·

What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court

33 points by UUjiasuqi 2y ago

ml-anon 2y ago
This going to court will be the best outcome possible for society.
jmclnx 2y ago
If it goes to court, it will be an interesting case and may have big ramifications. I believe the person used was selected because she sounded like Scarlett. If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? I have heard ads with people sounding like various US Presidents over the years, could doing that be illegal ?
- tensor 2y ago
  Surely there must be precedence here. This can't be the first time people hired sound-a-like voice actors for something.
  - delecti 2y ago
    Yes, and a case with a lot of similarity too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
    - quasse 2y ago
      This is interesting because the district court seems to initially have decided the opposite of Tom Waits vs Frito Lay (http://tomwaitslibrary.info/biography/copyright/frito-lay/ http://tomwaitslibrary.info/biography/copyright/frito-lay/). Looks like the appellate court came to the same conclusion though, a famous person's voice is distinctive to their identity and intentionally imitating it is a type of false association claim.
      - CRConrad 2y ago
        Yes, AIUI from discussion here last week, Waits used the final Midler verdict as precedent.
- freejazz 2y ago
  > If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? It continues to baffle me that people formulate this issue as it just being about the similar voices as opposed to OpenAI's efforts to capitalize on ScarJo's likeness by making explicit references to ScarJo and her work, in combination with using a similar voice. Obviously, it is not against the law to have a similar voice as someone. Obviously, it is against the law to capitalize upon another person's likeness without their permission. I don't understand why people pretend it's hard to distinguish between the two categories, it's not.
  - vessenes 2y ago
    Just to be clear here, which of these two circumstances do you believe is at play in the johannsen v OpenAI dispute?
  - opello 2y ago
    > Obviously, it is against the law to capitalize upon another person's likeness without their permission. This seems similar to MikeRoweSoft.com[1] which was ultimately settled instead of being tested in court. Maybe closer, does this line of thinking mean that the twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson[2] couldn't have distinct professional acting careers without one another's explicit permission because of their similarity (capitalized on for Full House) as one would necessarily infringe on the likeness of the other? That seems like a bridge too far. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary-Kate_and_Ashley_Olsen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary-Kate_and_Ashley_Olsen
    - freejazz 2y ago
      >Maybe closer, does this line of thinking mean that the twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson[2] couldn't have distinct professional acting careers without one another's explicit permission because of their similarity (capitalized on for Full House) as one would necessarily infringe on the likeness of the other? That seems like a bridge too far. What line of thinking? Right of publicity laws are not new. If one of the twins purported to be the other, yes, why wouldn't the other twin have a claim? What is controversial about that?
- bgentry 2y ago
  What if I look like a famous actor/actress or model? Should I not be allowed to act or model professionally? Or if I sound like a famous singer, should I not be allowed to sing for profit? What if my paintings have a similar style to a famous painter, should I not be allowed to paint for a living?
  - threeseed 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - bgentry 2y ago
      Fairly sure I understand the public details about this situation. We have at least one newspaper that has reviewed recordings or footage from the voice actor and confirmed that the OpenAI voice is a direct match for her actual regular speaking voice. We also have records illustrating that the CEO had no direct involvement in the hiring of the voice talent, and that there was no direction given for her to "sound like 'Her'". Without any evidence that OpenAI set out to intentionally find someone who sounded like a fictional character, why should this individual be prevented from seeking work as a voice actor in any capacity?
    - orangecat 2y ago
      They wanted Scarlett Johansson specifically, couldn't get her and then hired someone They hired the Sky voice actress well before contacting SJ. with the intent to convince the public it was her. The only evidence for this is Sam's "her" tweet, which can easily be referring to the concept of a realistically-voiced AI assistant rather than SJ in particular.
      - notaustinpowers 2y ago
        > They hired the Sky voice actress well before contacting SJ. Then why would they need to contact SJ 2 days before the release? If they already had the Sky voice complete? If there wouldn't be enough time to have SJ record everything for the voice? To me, it doesn't pass the sniff test. Either their talent department is just really bad at planning and had no clue it was releasing just two days later (unlikely), or they were trying to get an agreement signed with her before the release, anticipating that this would happen (likely).
- sandworm101 2y ago
  No. Contrary to layperson belief, there is little new in deepfakes. People have been faking the image of celebs for many years decades (SNL) and faking their personality even further (Hustler v Falwell, Lohan v GTA). The porn industry has an entire genre dedicated to parodies of famous people and famous situations. And there are the professional celeb lookalikes. Every historical film involves someone trying to mimic a real person. Imagine if Winston Churchill's estate started going after every actor who has ever used "his" accent without permission. All of those are situations where the mimicry was done blatantly and openly. This is a case where the mimicry is contested at best. The only hope would be to somehow prove literal copying, her voice fed into that software. And pity every other upcoming actor who looks/sounds vaguely similar to an existing famous person. Shall they be gagged, the very sound of their voice owned by someone else?
  - freejazz 2y ago
    Is literal copying a necessary element for a right of publicity claim? I don't think so, but I don't litigate them. I would think that OpenAI's conduct in referencing ScarJo and her body of work in relation to the voice would allow for a reasonable inference that they intended the public to believe it was ScarJo's voice, and not that of a similarly sounding voice actor? from the article: "It doesn’t matter whether a person’s actual voice is used in an imitation or not, Rothman says, only whether that audio confuses listeners" Do you have non-layman knowledge about these kinds of claims?
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    That's fair use. Fair use is limited to commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, and scholarship. OpenAI will try and claim fair use, but I don't think they'll succeed.
    - sandworm101 2y ago
      Fair use only applies to copyrighted material. A voice, a mode of speech, is not copyrightable. Step one in a copyright defense it to prove that no "taking" occurred, or that any involved material wasn't protected by copyright (Lohan v. GTA). Only then do you get to affirmative defenses such as fair use (Hustler). This case would not get that far, not absent evidence of literal copies of her recorded voice being played back by the software.
- HenryBemis 2y ago
  I will assume that imitating Reagan to sell X products (that are not insulting the to the memory of Reagan) would be "ok". But Reagan is dead, and I don't feel that using a voice similar to his (or Clinton's who's still alive) removes bread from their table. If everyone deliberately starts using a voice 'like' Johansson's, or the image 'like' Johansson's, that would steal the bread from her table. I don't know if there are laws/cases covering 'lookalikes' but it's kinda like that.
- pyeri 2y ago
  I think it might go the Google vs Oracle way. The courts might do the right and ethical thing (Google wins) but the basis will be a specific workaround (fair use of APIs) instead of something beneficial for society as a whole (APIs can't be copyrighted).
- justin66 2y ago
  > If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? The question implies that you believe a professional voice actor has a single voice they can use. That is a silly thing to believe.
  - anonymousab 2y ago
    What if it was their natural voice and cadence? People can sound alike or even identical.
    - KittenInABox 2y ago
      People can sound alike, but if you hire someone because they sound like someone famous hoping people believe you hired the famous person, that's bad.
  - fxd123 2y ago
    OpenAI's claim is that they used the voice actors' natural voice > That is a silly thing to believe. I think it's silly to believe that celebrities should own voices
Someone1234 2y ago
As far as I know, nobody has filed any cases in court, yet I see multiple articles and misstatements claiming otherwise which is odd. This "case" was essentially resolved immediately and seemingly without major damage to either party. But people are absolutely chomping at the bit to have this be some kind of court-case, even if such a case would be long, expensive, and likely with two losers and zero winners. If people want to discuss some hypothetical court-case go at it, but the chance of this actually going anywhere is low. I just feel like this is filling some "AI news" void.
vessenes 2y ago
I’m mystified as to two things here: first that people feel this is ‘open and shut’ in Ms Johannsen’s favor, and second that this hasn’t been settled economically. IF: OpenAI had advertised SJ as being a voice, had sold the plus subscription with that voice as a benefit, and had instructed talent scouting and internal editors to ‘copy her’ then this would be open and shut. We know for sure the first part did not happen: if there’s a case then discovery will tell us the second part. If on the other hand they chose the voice for sky because they liked the actors natural voice, whether or not it was because they were reminded of SJ that is anything but open and shut- in fact it seems very difficult to me; a judge must determine that another actor cannot work at all, even if she makes no attempt to sound alike, sell as SJ, all through a platform that shows undeniable value regardless of voice. Guys, SJ is beautiful and likable. But this is a big ask of a credible federal judge. As to money, I’m also mystified why they can’t ink a deal like: the largest single film voice acting payment is roughly $15mm. Let’s do a deal where we use your actual voice (which I would say is obviously different than sky) and rev share 50/50 with you on premium purchases, 50mm guaranteed year one. It seems to me like this would open up the best possible world where people can have gpt4o talk with the voice of whatever actor that’s licensed, and these actors have a new distribution vehicle that’s valuable. Again SJ may not want to license for whatever reason she chooses, but I bet that OpenAI didn’t make a serious rev share offer, and I think they should.
- mateus1 2y ago
  It’s not just a matter of the voice being a 1:1 match with Johansenns’s or that it used it as an input to build the model. What is definitive is that Open AI intently based this on the film Her as per docs and tweets && they used her voice similarity after being declined more than once.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  For the first part, you're forgetting the "her" tweet, and the attempts of getting SJ to sell them her voice as recently as two days before they launched her sound-alike. And we know they thought it's a soundalike because they immediately changed it once the scandal started. For the second part, you're assuming that they just didn't offer enough money. It's very likely instead that SJ didn't want to associate her brand with this business.
bsimpson 2y ago
It's interesting to see Sam Altman on the record claiming this was a complete accident the same week that it came out that he got fired from OpenAI last year for having a pattern of handwaving "misunderstandings" when he got caught on the wrong side of the truth. Nobody believes that you gave a feminine voice to an AI and nobody involved considered the similarities to the most famous feminine AI character, especially when you started out by trying to hire the same actress to do the voice.
- frabjoused 2y ago
  This week might be the bit flip on his reputation. Starting to see defense comments getting downvoted, when earlier critical comments would get downvoted. Once you pass that 50% opinion it's pretty hard to reverse.
  - soperj 2y ago
    you'd need a long standing campaign ala Bill Gates from the 2000s. It seems like the truth shines through eventually though.
    - snapcaster 2y ago
      How do you know what the truth is? I'm confused whether you're referencing Epstein connections or just ignoring them
      - CRConrad 2y ago
        Whose Epstein connections are you talking about – Gates or Altman?
jmugan 2y ago
Yeah, I don't get this at all. I don't have a donkey in this fight, but it seems to me that 1. They wanted to build the experience from the movie Her. 2. They wanted to use Johansson's voice because that would be a cool tie-in. 3. Johansson said no, so they went with somebody else. 4. End of story.
- theyinwhy 2y ago
  4. They did the childish move to let someone impersonate her 5. The lawyers told them two days before release that this is a bad idea and they should get Johansson's approval 6. They did not and did the other childish move to release it nevertheless
  - jmugan 2y ago
    To me, they don't sound the same. Certainly both flirty and fun; I can't imagine getting much work done with an assistant that chatty.
grammarnazzzi 2y ago
[dead]
kelsey98765431 2y ago
Funny how the ownership class is so strongly against technology that makes their "ownership" of something as silly as a voice at risk of losing its return on investment they will go to battle over this. This shows weakness in human voice talent, just look at this massive liability using humans introduces. Sorry honey, just because you think s voice sounds like you doesn't give you the right to throw a fit. Seems like shes salty that she didn't take their offer because when they said honestly it's fine we can do it without you, she didn't believe them. Now when they have done just as high quality of a voice without her she cannot grasp the fact they just didn't need her at all and her only value is basically vendor lock in, which is now failing. The people fighting this think a genie can go back in a bottle or something, or that you can leverage being "important" to claim the technology is unfair. NYT, this random actress, nobody cares. This is at the level of a national security breakthrough in terms of significance, trying to insert yourself into the middle of it after the fact to get the piece of the pie you already rejected just looks bad. I imagine we see more and more of these cases falling apart soon, can I sue my boss for reading my github page and getting ideas from it? Can I sue my teacher for reading harry potter to me? Can I sue youtube for hosting videos of people doing impersonations of obama? These systems learn. Learning is legal and protected. If we could sue the people who quote books they don't own, reference TV shows they don't have a current and valid license to stream, where do we draw the line? If I can sue a computer for learning from the world, or the teacher that gave it material, why can't I sue a church for teaching nonsense? Infact, why doesn't OpenAI just become a formal religion or something? All of this is 1.) going nowhere 2.) pointless overall 3.) a waste of energy 4.) preventing scientific progress
- ml-anon 2y ago
  Jfc. You’re raging about the “ownership” class as if OpenAI isn’t a vassal of the largest corporation on the planet.
tedunangst 2y ago
Is there any particular reason we need to speculate instead of simply letting the case happen and seeing what it looks like? This is basically fanfic masquerading as reporting? I assume the parties involved will not be forming their legal strategy by reading wired.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
""It was a boneheaded move," says David Herlihy, a copyright lawyer and music industry professor at Northeastern University. "A miscalculation." Other lawyers see OpenAI's behavior as so manifestly goofy they suspect the whole scandal might be a deliberate stunt..." It seems the people promoting "artificial intelligence" are not themselves intelligent. Funny coincidence.

33 points by UUjiasuqi 2y ago

This going to court will be the best outcome possible for society.

If it goes to court, it will be an interesting case and may have big ramifications. I believe the person used was selected because she sounded like Scarlett. If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? I have heard ads with people sounding like various US Presidents over the years, could doing that be illegal ?

tensor 2y ago
Surely there must be precedence here. This can't be the first time people hired sound-a-like voice actors for something.
- delecti 2y ago
  Yes, and a case with a lot of similarity too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
  - quasse 2y ago
    This is interesting because the district court seems to initially have decided the opposite of Tom Waits vs Frito Lay (http://tomwaitslibrary.info/biography/copyright/frito-lay/ http://tomwaitslibrary.info/biography/copyright/frito-lay/). Looks like the appellate court came to the same conclusion though, a famous person's voice is distinctive to their identity and intentionally imitating it is a type of false association claim.
    - CRConrad 2y ago
      Yes, AIUI from discussion here last week, Waits used the final Midler verdict as precedent.
freejazz 2y ago
> If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? It continues to baffle me that people formulate this issue as it just being about the similar voices as opposed to OpenAI's efforts to capitalize on ScarJo's likeness by making explicit references to ScarJo and her work, in combination with using a similar voice. Obviously, it is not against the law to have a similar voice as someone. Obviously, it is against the law to capitalize upon another person's likeness without their permission. I don't understand why people pretend it's hard to distinguish between the two categories, it's not.
- vessenes 2y ago
  Just to be clear here, which of these two circumstances do you believe is at play in the johannsen v OpenAI dispute?
- opello 2y ago
  > Obviously, it is against the law to capitalize upon another person's likeness without their permission. This seems similar to MikeRoweSoft.com[1] which was ultimately settled instead of being tested in court. Maybe closer, does this line of thinking mean that the twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson[2] couldn't have distinct professional acting careers without one another's explicit permission because of their similarity (capitalized on for Full House) as one would necessarily infringe on the likeness of the other? That seems like a bridge too far. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary-Kate_and_Ashley_Olsen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary-Kate_and_Ashley_Olsen
  - freejazz 2y ago
    >Maybe closer, does this line of thinking mean that the twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson[2] couldn't have distinct professional acting careers without one another's explicit permission because of their similarity (capitalized on for Full House) as one would necessarily infringe on the likeness of the other? That seems like a bridge too far. What line of thinking? Right of publicity laws are not new. If one of the twins purported to be the other, yes, why wouldn't the other twin have a claim? What is controversial about that?
bgentry 2y ago
What if I look like a famous actor/actress or model? Should I not be allowed to act or model professionally? Or if I sound like a famous singer, should I not be allowed to sing for profit? What if my paintings have a similar style to a famous painter, should I not be allowed to paint for a living?
- threeseed 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - bgentry 2y ago
    Fairly sure I understand the public details about this situation. We have at least one newspaper that has reviewed recordings or footage from the voice actor and confirmed that the OpenAI voice is a direct match for her actual regular speaking voice. We also have records illustrating that the CEO had no direct involvement in the hiring of the voice talent, and that there was no direction given for her to "sound like 'Her'". Without any evidence that OpenAI set out to intentionally find someone who sounded like a fictional character, why should this individual be prevented from seeking work as a voice actor in any capacity?
  - orangecat 2y ago
    They wanted Scarlett Johansson specifically, couldn't get her and then hired someone They hired the Sky voice actress well before contacting SJ. with the intent to convince the public it was her. The only evidence for this is Sam's "her" tweet, which can easily be referring to the concept of a realistically-voiced AI assistant rather than SJ in particular.
    - notaustinpowers 2y ago
      > They hired the Sky voice actress well before contacting SJ. Then why would they need to contact SJ 2 days before the release? If they already had the Sky voice complete? If there wouldn't be enough time to have SJ record everything for the voice? To me, it doesn't pass the sniff test. Either their talent department is just really bad at planning and had no clue it was releasing just two days later (unlikely), or they were trying to get an agreement signed with her before the release, anticipating that this would happen (likely).
sandworm101 2y ago
No. Contrary to layperson belief, there is little new in deepfakes. People have been faking the image of celebs for many years decades (SNL) and faking their personality even further (Hustler v Falwell, Lohan v GTA). The porn industry has an entire genre dedicated to parodies of famous people and famous situations. And there are the professional celeb lookalikes. Every historical film involves someone trying to mimic a real person. Imagine if Winston Churchill's estate started going after every actor who has ever used "his" accent without permission. All of those are situations where the mimicry was done blatantly and openly. This is a case where the mimicry is contested at best. The only hope would be to somehow prove literal copying, her voice fed into that software. And pity every other upcoming actor who looks/sounds vaguely similar to an existing famous person. Shall they be gagged, the very sound of their voice owned by someone else?
- freejazz 2y ago
  Is literal copying a necessary element for a right of publicity claim? I don't think so, but I don't litigate them. I would think that OpenAI's conduct in referencing ScarJo and her body of work in relation to the voice would allow for a reasonable inference that they intended the public to believe it was ScarJo's voice, and not that of a similarly sounding voice actor? from the article: "It doesn’t matter whether a person’s actual voice is used in an imitation or not, Rothman says, only whether that audio confuses listeners" Do you have non-layman knowledge about these kinds of claims?
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  That's fair use. Fair use is limited to commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, and scholarship. OpenAI will try and claim fair use, but I don't think they'll succeed.
  - sandworm101 2y ago
    Fair use only applies to copyrighted material. A voice, a mode of speech, is not copyrightable. Step one in a copyright defense it to prove that no "taking" occurred, or that any involved material wasn't protected by copyright (Lohan v. GTA). Only then do you get to affirmative defenses such as fair use (Hustler). This case would not get that far, not absent evidence of literal copies of her recorded voice being played back by the software.
HenryBemis 2y ago
I will assume that imitating Reagan to sell X products (that are not insulting the to the memory of Reagan) would be "ok". But Reagan is dead, and I don't feel that using a voice similar to his (or Clinton's who's still alive) removes bread from their table. If everyone deliberately starts using a voice 'like' Johansson's, or the image 'like' Johansson's, that would steal the bread from her table. I don't know if there are laws/cases covering 'lookalikes' but it's kinda like that.
pyeri 2y ago
I think it might go the Google vs Oracle way. The courts might do the right and ethical thing (Google wins) but the basis will be a specific workaround (fair use of APIs) instead of something beneficial for society as a whole (APIs can't be copyrighted).
justin66 2y ago
> If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? The question implies that you believe a professional voice actor has a single voice they can use. That is a silly thing to believe.
- anonymousab 2y ago
  What if it was their natural voice and cadence? People can sound alike or even identical.
  - KittenInABox 2y ago
    People can sound alike, but if you hire someone because they sound like someone famous hoping people believe you hired the famous person, that's bad.
- fxd123 2y ago
  OpenAI's claim is that they used the voice actors' natural voice > That is a silly thing to believe. I think it's silly to believe that celebrities should own voices

Someone1234 2y ago

As far as I know, nobody has filed any cases in court, yet I see multiple articles and misstatements claiming otherwise which is odd. This "case" was essentially resolved immediately and seemingly without major damage to either party. But people are absolutely chomping at the bit to have this be some kind of court-case, even if such a case would be long, expensive, and likely with two losers and zero winners. If people want to discuss some hypothetical court-case go at it, but the chance of this actually going anywhere is low. I just feel like this is filling some "AI news" void.

vessenes 2y ago

I’m mystified as to two things here: first that people feel this is ‘open and shut’ in Ms Johannsen’s favor, and second that this hasn’t been settled economically. IF: OpenAI had advertised SJ as being a voice, had sold the plus subscription with that voice as a benefit, and had instructed talent scouting and internal editors to ‘copy her’ then this would be open and shut. We know for sure the first part did not happen: if there’s a case then discovery will tell us the second part. If on the other hand they chose the voice for sky because they liked the actors natural voice, whether or not it was because they were reminded of SJ that is anything but open and shut- in fact it seems very difficult to me; a judge must determine that another actor cannot work at all, even if she makes no attempt to sound alike, sell as SJ, all through a platform that shows undeniable value regardless of voice. Guys, SJ is beautiful and likable. But this is a big ask of a credible federal judge. As to money, I’m also mystified why they can’t ink a deal like: the largest single film voice acting payment is roughly $15mm. Let’s do a deal where we use your actual voice (which I would say is obviously different than sky) and rev share 50/50 with you on premium purchases, 50mm guaranteed year one. It seems to me like this would open up the best possible world where people can have gpt4o talk with the voice of whatever actor that’s licensed, and these actors have a new distribution vehicle that’s valuable. Again SJ may not want to license for whatever reason she chooses, but I bet that OpenAI didn’t make a serious rev share offer, and I think they should.

mateus1 2y ago
It’s not just a matter of the voice being a 1:1 match with Johansenns’s or that it used it as an input to build the model. What is definitive is that Open AI intently based this on the film Her as per docs and tweets && they used her voice similarity after being declined more than once.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
tsimionescu 2y ago
For the first part, you're forgetting the "her" tweet, and the attempts of getting SJ to sell them her voice as recently as two days before they launched her sound-alike. And we know they thought it's a soundalike because they immediately changed it once the scandal started. For the second part, you're assuming that they just didn't offer enough money. It's very likely instead that SJ didn't want to associate her brand with this business.

bsimpson 2y ago

It's interesting to see Sam Altman on the record claiming this was a complete accident the same week that it came out that he got fired from OpenAI last year for having a pattern of handwaving "misunderstandings" when he got caught on the wrong side of the truth. Nobody believes that you gave a feminine voice to an AI and nobody involved considered the similarities to the most famous feminine AI character, especially when you started out by trying to hire the same actress to do the voice.

frabjoused 2y ago
This week might be the bit flip on his reputation. Starting to see defense comments getting downvoted, when earlier critical comments would get downvoted. Once you pass that 50% opinion it's pretty hard to reverse.
- soperj 2y ago
  you'd need a long standing campaign ala Bill Gates from the 2000s. It seems like the truth shines through eventually though.
  - snapcaster 2y ago
    How do you know what the truth is? I'm confused whether you're referencing Epstein connections or just ignoring them
    - CRConrad 2y ago
      Whose Epstein connections are you talking about – Gates or Altman?

jmugan 2y ago

Yeah, I don't get this at all. I don't have a donkey in this fight, but it seems to me that 1. They wanted to build the experience from the movie Her. 2. They wanted to use Johansson's voice because that would be a cool tie-in. 3. Johansson said no, so they went with somebody else. 4. End of story.

theyinwhy 2y ago
4. They did the childish move to let someone impersonate her 5. The lawyers told them two days before release that this is a bad idea and they should get Johansson's approval 6. They did not and did the other childish move to release it nevertheless
- jmugan 2y ago
  To me, they don't sound the same. Certainly both flirty and fun; I can't imagine getting much work done with an assistant that chatty.

grammarnazzzi 2y ago

[dead]

kelsey98765431 2y ago

Funny how the ownership class is so strongly against technology that makes their "ownership" of something as silly as a voice at risk of losing its return on investment they will go to battle over this. This shows weakness in human voice talent, just look at this massive liability using humans introduces. Sorry honey, just because you think s voice sounds like you doesn't give you the right to throw a fit. Seems like shes salty that she didn't take their offer because when they said honestly it's fine we can do it without you, she didn't believe them. Now when they have done just as high quality of a voice without her she cannot grasp the fact they just didn't need her at all and her only value is basically vendor lock in, which is now failing. The people fighting this think a genie can go back in a bottle or something, or that you can leverage being "important" to claim the technology is unfair. NYT, this random actress, nobody cares. This is at the level of a national security breakthrough in terms of significance, trying to insert yourself into the middle of it after the fact to get the piece of the pie you already rejected just looks bad. I imagine we see more and more of these cases falling apart soon, can I sue my boss for reading my github page and getting ideas from it? Can I sue my teacher for reading harry potter to me? Can I sue youtube for hosting videos of people doing impersonations of obama? These systems learn. Learning is legal and protected. If we could sue the people who quote books they don't own, reference TV shows they don't have a current and valid license to stream, where do we draw the line? If I can sue a computer for learning from the world, or the teacher that gave it material, why can't I sue a church for teaching nonsense? Infact, why doesn't OpenAI just become a formal religion or something? All of this is 1.) going nowhere 2.) pointless overall 3.) a waste of energy 4.) preventing scientific progress

ml-anon 2y ago
Jfc. You’re raging about the “ownership” class as if OpenAI isn’t a vassal of the largest corporation on the planet.

tedunangst 2y ago

Is there any particular reason we need to speculate instead of simply letting the case happen and seeing what it looks like? This is basically fanfic masquerading as reporting? I assume the parties involved will not be forming their legal strategy by reading wired.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

""It was a boneheaded move," says David Herlihy, a copyright lawyer and music industry professor at Northeastern University. "A miscalculation." Other lawyers see OpenAI's behavior as so manifestly goofy they suspect the whole scandal might be a deliberate stunt..." It seems the people promoting "artificial intelligence" are not themselves intelligent. Funny coincidence.