This is the best summary I could come up with:
Scarlett Johansson is famed for many roles, among them her disquieting performance in Her, a movie about the relationship between a man and an AI chatbot.
When OpenAI boss Sam Altman contacted Johansson to ask to use her voice for his company’s forthcoming real-life AI chatbot, you can well imagine why1 she said no.
Johansson, clearly livid, ultimately issued a public statement and a legal letter before the clone was removed.
“I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference,” she said, … “In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity,” Johansson said in a statement to NPR.
But Murati’s audacious claim never to have heard the voice of the AI chatbot in her boss’s favorite movie is key to understanding something else: they don’t just think they’re the smartest people in the world, they think that everyone else is stupid.
As a final fun thing today, check out how Google News’s AI junk has hallucinated a factually incorrect headline that’s the exact opposite of the truth here:
The original article contains 427 words, the summary contains 216 words. Saved 49%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
As a final fun thing today, check out how Google News’s AI junk has hallucinated a factually incorrect headline that’s the exact opposite of the truth here
We literally have wars being fought over simple misunderstandings and half truths. How much worse is it going to be, when AIS take hold.
Google lost the Artificial Intelligence race… so now they’re trying to win the race to Artificial Stupidity.
At first, they denied it—“OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati said the company did not pattern any ChatGPT voices on Johansson’s sultry computer voice in the movie,” but Altman and other OpenAI guys had let the cat out the bag on Twitter
They’re not just deliberately using her voice; they’re deliberately lying about it and bragging about what really happened in public. They’ll pay some nuisance settlement that’s a small fraction of their profit.
That’s how they treat an a list actress. Imagine how they treat everyone else. You don’t get a settlement. You just get fucked.
No, you don’t understand, these guys are tech bros, they’re special, for reasons.
From the article:
they don’t just think they’re the smartest people in the world, they think that everyone else is stupid.
And that sums up techbros in one sentence.
You see this in action anytime people go “no no you just don’t understand how this works” as a way of sidestepping the overall issue. They try to bury you in the minutiae of it, and what’s “technically” possible without acknowledging that A) what’s possible will increase over time and B) the issue is not technology, it’s the intention of it and the motivations of the people behind it.
It’s like trying to deconstruct the concept of a gun, talking about all its potential mechanical malfunctions, its capacity limits, the fact you have to aim it, and so on, all as a way of trying to downplay the danger of it being pointed directly at you.
According to her statement, they were still trying to strike a deal with her within days of the release.
I can’t imagine anything more shady than trying to strike a deal with someone for their likeness, all the while preparing to use it anyway and later denying it had anything to do with them
She is going to take them to the cleaners, and Altman and his circlejerk club will deserve every single cent of the damages they’re forced to pay. I genuinely hope she makes it an incredibly messy and eye wateringly expensive legal process for them. I’m not a ScarJo fanboy by any means, but fuck OpenAI for thinking they can get away with something so absurdly blatant and obviously unethical.
Gods, I hope you’re right. I hope it’s so bad that it scares every other AI company. Because they get away with this kind of crap all the time with no repercussions, since your average person doesn’t have the money to bring them to court over it.
They “let the cat out of the bag” by referencing the movie “Her” if I understand correctly. Not really an admition of guilt like the article makes it seem.
They also clearly state on their website that they used an other voice actor. If you actually compare both voices, they aren’t the same just similar. They probably went with someone that sounds like her on purpose specifically because of the movie but that’s fine really.
This article is emotional and manipulative. I don’t think scar jo deserves to own the whole spectrum her voice belongs to just because she voiced an AI in one movie. This is how you end up with corporations owning all voices like they tried with music.
I wouldn’t ever want someone to be able to own a tone/sound of voice. I’m with you there.
But it kinda sounds like they’re trying to straight-up imitate her. Like they want people to hear this ai and think it’s voiced by johanssen herself.
I don’t know if that’s true, or if it even makes a difference legally, it’s just the impression I’m getting.
I’m not knowledgeable about any of this; any correction is welcome, lol.
Not really an admition of guilt like the article makes it seem.
You don’t need an admission of guilt to lose in court. The fact that they pursued her permission up until 2 days before the release, even after being assured the client did not wish for them to utilize her voice, is pretty damning.
I don’t think scar jo deserves to own the whole spectrum her voice belongs to just because she voiced an AI in one movie.
What’s the difference between this and an AI releasing a Taylor Swift album? Does Taylor Swift deserve to own a whole spectrum of voice?
Voice acting is still an art, and artists deserve to be paid for their contributions. If she has performed an awfully in Her, would they still want to mimic her voice? If Her hadn’t been made, would they have come up with the voice and personality out of the blue?
No, because it’s art, and AI is just an advanced copying machine. Open AI is just the newest attempt to leverage artists and workers from their group bargaining power. It’s the scab of the future, but with more carbon emissions.
You don’t need an admission of guilt to lose in court.
Currently even if they used voice clips to train a model on her voice it wouldn’t be illegal. That isn’t currently the case, since they say they used an other actress that sounds like her anyways.
Does Taylor Swift deserve to own a whole spectrum of voice?
No, just like she doesn’t deserve to own the four chord progressions that make up her songs. If she did, she could literally sue half of all pop music.
This is why none of this is copyrightable. There are too many people that have similar voices and too many songs that use similar chord progressions.
Your fantasy where this empowers small time artists is just that, a fantasy. If we push and they come out with new laws that make these things copyrightable, you just end up with corporations owning all of it.
In Scarlett Johansson‘s statement, she says that OpenAI approached her to voice the Sky voice.
Whether or not OpenAI hired another actress that sounded very similar to her (hah.) and they are weirdly cagey about naming or they just ripped off the audio from her movies and are lying about hiring a voice actress, is not the extent of the issue.
People sounding alike just happens. But that we know they asked to use Johansson’s voice for this. After being rebuffed, they created Sky, which sounds a lot like Sam, and made several references to the Her movie. Sky is even presented with the same ‘personality’ as Sam. They aren’t just ripping off Scarlett Johansson’s voice acting, they’re ripping off the character as a whole, and trying to associate themselves with the movie. That’s shameful and rips off Spike Jonze as well as all the other creatives who created that movie.
And for what? Because tech bros didn’t get what they wanted, so they decided to try to rip off the characters anyway? Because Her is sort of a cultural touchstone, and their product is merely well-positioned, but GPT-4o will be in a crowded market space within 6 months?
It’s sort of pathetic - pretending to lean on the relevance of a movie because your product is destined to become irrelevant.
Also - highly ironic to me that Her is (somewhat) about how you can’t own something that doesn’t consent to be owned. And those dumb bitches went and ripped it off when they didn’t get consent. Well, now Sky’s gone to join Sam in some non-corporeal reality.
Sorry for the novel. I didn’t sleep well and I get weird when I’m sleep deprived.
Just like scarlet doesn’t own all voices that sound mildly like her, Spike Jonze doesn’t own the concept of an AI companion.
I’m not really sure what your point is, there’s nothing to rip off. No matter what they make it sound like, there’s going to be similarities with the movie. There’s nothing wrong with leaning into these for advertising purposes.
There’s also this part:
But Johansson’s public statement describes how they tried to shmooze her: they approached her last fall and were given the FO, contacted her agent two days before launch to ask for reconsideration, launched it before they got a response, then yanked it when her lawyers asked them how they made the voice.
Which is still not an admission of guilt, but seems very shady at the very least, if it’s actually what happened.
If you read another article that has more information to it, instead of just this opinion piece, it looks like they hired and paid a voice actress and that it is her natural voice (supposedly).
Which begs the question: Can a voice actor be denied work or denied the ability to have their voice used, if they sound similar to someone else who is more famous?
This kind of reminds me of Crispin Glover, from Back to the Future. He tried to negotiate a higher pay for the second movie, so the producers hired a different actor to play the role, but deliberately made the actor up to look like Glover. In response, Glover sued the producers and won. It set a critical precedent for Hollywood, about using someone’s likeness without consent.
The article mentions they reached out to her two days before the launch - if she had said ‘OK,’ there’s no way they could have even recorded what they needed from her, let alone trained the model in time for the presentation. So they must have had a Scarlett Johansson voice ready to go. Other than training the model on movies (really not ideal for a high quality voice model), how would they have gotten the recordings they needed?
If they hired a “random” voice actress, they might not run into issues. But if at any point they had a job listing, a discussion with a talent manager, or anything else where they mentioned wanting a “Scarlett Johansson sound-alike,” they might have dug themselves a nice hole here.
Specifically regarding your question about hiring a voice actor that sounds like someone else - this is commonly done to replace people for cartoons. I don’t think it’s an issue if you are playing a character. But if you deliberately impersonate a person, there might be some trouble.
Well one of the other articles I’ve read said they listened to and sampled 400 voice actors and selected 5 of them to have flown out to do all the voice work. The voice in the product also doesn’t sound that much like Scar Jo. Just similar. She never had a very unique voice.
Honestly, with the tweets that reference the Her movie, they may already be in a hole, anyway. Plus, it’s not just the voice, it’s that the ‘character’ of the Sky voice is very similar to Sam in the Her movie.
If I were a jurist, I could easily be persuaded to believe they willingly committed IP theft and attempted to imply endorsement of the Her movie (the production studio?), Spike Jonze, and Scarlett Johansson.
(Of course, that statement would disqualify me as a jurist, so I’ll never know!)
Intent probably matters a lot here. The actor they hired did not coincidentally have a similar voice. They were hired because they had a similar voice, and the fact that Scarlett Johansson was approached to start with only underscores this.
They were specifically looking for her likeness, for commercial reasons. And when it was denied, they purposely imitated it. That doesn’t feel right to me. In the end, they’re still trying to use her likeness without permission.
That’s different than if they liked a VA’s voice and hired them. The voice could be similar, but there was no ill intent nor attempting to copy a likeness. I think they would’ve been fine if they were even shooting for something like her voice. Where OpenAI fucked up is approaching Johansson to start with, because it shows they didn’t want something like her voice or the VA coincidentally sounded similar – they purposely wanted her likeness, and went behind her back to do it once she denied them.
These are the same dudes who have LSD and mushroom parties with their female coworkers and then pressure them into sex.
Orgies and psychedelics use is super common in their own rite, but it’s even more common in high tech silicone valley circles:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40401043
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/machine-learning-researcher-links-openai-185652824.html
A big lawsuit is necessary to set a precedence.
Not what you or the Supreme Court thinks.
Phew, good thing the courts in the USA - (a country with sadly laughable protections for people’s rights compared to other large developed regions like the EU) - are the only courts in the world, and what they do is the only thing that matters.
Thanks for telling us all what we think, by the way. Where would we be without an American telling us all what we think?
We’re so lucky.
This article is bullshit man, voice is not even that similar, there is 0 proof that’s her voice or even that they asked her if they can use her voice. People is blowing this out of proportion
But they did ask if they could license her voice and she said no. Balls in your court.
And they didn’t use her voice. Article clearly states that she said she is shocked they choose similar voice to her after she declined. It makes sense for open Ai to choose similar one because when they were preparing list of the voices they obviously wanted voice to be of her kind. It’s not like her voice is something so fucking unique she has copyright over all of the similar voices in the world
Guy you replied to did miss that part but consider the (still to be verified) facts.
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they ask to use her voice, she declined.
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they proceed by not using her voice. Someone else’s voice instead.
oPeNaI “believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity’s distinctive voice—Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice. To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talents.”
The end result is pretty clear here. Either this other person exist and could testify privately in court with her natural voice which she has the rights to work with OpenAi. There is a closure in law where not being able to provide evidence that the court knows must exist can make you guilty. Openai could have tried to pull a “this is a fully unique synthetic voice” but crucially they did not.
This story is blowing so fucking far out of proportion it’s honestly incredible. Just so everyone is one the same page, here is a video timestamped to the voice, and immediately following the voice you can hear the voice from Her as well.
https://youtu.be/3BWjomtK-94?si=tDu574b4GySpnPIy&t=42
They are not similar other than they are both female.
The whole “her” thing that Altman threw up on twitter is just because the goddamned movie was a touchstone for the kind of thing that they are doing. They weren’t cloning the fucking voice. It’s like naming your new iguana Godzilla. It’s not going to destroy Tokyo any time soon, it’s just a cultural reference, you know, like a meme.
As far as Johansson goes, she is falling prey to this shit just like every other celebrity that has been railing against big bad AI. There are so many sheisty lawyers trying to get their hands on the first big win from an AI suit that they will say anything to get a celebrity to sue, because if their firm wins, they become the Anti-AI lawfirm that all others will seek in the future. They will print money, but only if something sticks, and so far, nothing has. This will be another case like any other, where they take it to court, and there is no real basis for anything, and it ends up being all over the news and then disappearing like the whole debacle over Sarah Silverman’s book. In three months there will be another case against AI, and again, nothing will stick, because the people putting the bug in people’s ears don’t understand how to use most of the functionality of their cellphone, let alone how generative AI works.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/3BWjomtK-94?si=tDu574b4GySpnPIy&t=42
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
No no you don’t understand. Since Scar Jo played a female voice that behaved nicely and made jokes in a movie she now owns the rights to any female (or feminine male voice) that either: makes a joke, says something witty, answers a question, or makes a statement. This is a slam dunk case for Scar Jo. I will also be sued for writing this as she also wrote an email in a movie once that had words in the forms of sentences just like this post so I’m screwed.
It’s still very much not nice to specifically use the reference from the movie given Scarlett clearly indicates she doesn’t like what they are doing.
You can literally pick another reference - not that she is the only person ever playing a digital/robotic woman.
But they proceeded anyway. This signals disregard and disrespect to whatever sources they use, if nothing else.
Finally, a sane response. Of course they’ll “sound similar” because they’re both female voices attempting to come off as friendly with an American accent.
I’m more on the side of opposing AI implementations but people are really reaching with this one. I’m assuming it was pulled just so they can get their legal defense in order.
This will be another case like any other, where they take it to court, and there is no real basis for anything
Because then they’ll give up whoever it was that they used to voice the AI and it’ll be mostly over. The thing is though that if they rush into a lawsuit too eagerly, nobody’s going to want to work with them under a similar contract.
Yeah I thought OpenAI came out and said that they modeled the voice of a different actress, and they don’t want to share their identity out of a respect for privacy.
It could just be a coincidence that Altman tweeted the image from Her, and people made the connection between the voice and ScarJo, especially since she did something extreme similar in that movie.
Could be coincidental. Could not be. We don’t really have the evidence to say either way, but maybe ScarJo’s suit will affect change so that better rights are granted to people and their digital twins.
Something, something… don’t ask for permission, ask for forgiveness. Yet, they asked for permission and were denied.
Not sure if they thought they’d get away with it or if they just wanted this publicity. I’m thinking it was their hubris.
