Scarlett Johansson has spoken out against OpenAI after the company used a voice eerily similar to hers in its new ChatGPT product.
The actress said in a statement that OpenAI approached her nine months ago about expressing its artificial intelligence system, but she declined for “personal reasons.” Johansson was “shocked” and “angry” when she heard the voice option, which “sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and the media couldn’t tell the difference,” she said.
OpenAI removed the much-hyped voice option from ChatGPT on Monday following widespread backlash to the flirty, feminine voice. The company had used voice, which it calls “Sky,” during its widely publicized event last week in which it introduced the capabilities of the new ChatGPT-4o artificial intelligence model. The researchers spoke to the AI assistant to show Sky’s pleasant and responsive affectations, which users and members of the media immediately compared to Johansson’s AI companion character in Spike Jonze’s 2013 film Her.
Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman seemed to suggest that the vocal design was intentionally mimicking Johansson’s character, posting a one-word tweet after the performance that simply said “she.” Less than a week later, OpenAI felt compelled to explicitly clarify that Sky was not based on Johansson. The company published a blog post about the creation of Sky and stated that it values the voice acting industry.
“Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural voice,” the blog post said. “To protect her privacy, we cannot share the names of our announcers.”
Johansson said that when Altman initially approached her with the project, he told her that he “felt that by expressing the system, he could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers feel comfortable with the seismic shift that affects humans and AI. She said she felt like my voice would comfort people.”
He claimed Altman contacted his agent again, “asking me to reconsider,” two days before Sky was released. He said his lawyers then contacted OpenAI to remove her voice.
While many commentators remarked on Sky’s similarities to Johansson in Her, including Johansson’s husband and Saturday Night Live cast member Colin Jost during a segment on the show’s season finale, others questioned why the voice was so fawning. and gender. “You can really tell that a man built this technology,” said Daily Show host Desi Lydic. joked last week. “She says, ‘I have all the information in the world, but I don’t know anything.’”
OpenAI said it selected ChatGPT’s voice based on a number of criteria including having a “timeless” quality and being “an approachable voice that inspires trust.” OpenAI reviewed hundreds of voice acting submissions over a five-month period last year, the company said, and launched five different voice options for its ChatGPT in September. The chosen actors then flew to San Francisco for recording sessions that allowed OpenAI to train its models with their voices.
The company withdrew its voice at Sky days after several senior members of its security team resigned, and a key researcher, Jan Leike, said after his resignation that the company was prioritizing “brilliant products” over culture and processes. of security. Altman and fellow co-founder Greg Brockman defended the company over the weekend, stating that it would not release a product if there were safety concerns.
OpenAI’s Sunday blog post on ChatGPT voice creation also made numerous mentions of the company collaborating with entertainment industry professionals and compensating voice actors for their work. AI companies, especially OpenAI, have been the subject of intense backlash, including lawsuits, from artists, creators and media companies over allegations of copyright violations and concerns that AI will replace human workers. Major entertainment unions, such as Sag-Aftra, have gone on strike over issues including how artificial intelligence will use their images.