Scarlett Johansson denied OpenAI the right to use her voice. They used it anyway.
Scarlett Johansson denied OpenAI the right to use her voice. They used it anyway.
"I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine"
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.
The precedent in this case already exists in Midler v. Ford Motor Co., in which when Academy Award nominated actress and singer Bette Midler sued Ford after Ford hired musical impersonators to sing famous songs for their commercials.
The court ultimately ruled in favor of Midler, because it was found that Ford gave clear instructions to the impersonating actress to sound as much like Midler as possible, and the ruling was voices, although not copyrightable, still constitutes their distinct identity and is protected against unauthorized use without permission. (Outside of satire, of course, since I doubt someone like Trump would be above suing people for making fun of him.)
I think Scarlett Johansson has a case here, but it really hinges on whether or not OpenAI actively gave the instruction specifically to impersonate Scarlett's voice in "Her", or if they used her voice inside the training data at all, since there is a difference in the "Sky" voice and the voice of Scarlett Johansson.
But then again, what do I know, I'm just here to shitpost and promote "Barbie".
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.
This is very much the type of case that settles out of court for an undisclosed amount of money.
I doubt they are using Johansson's voice. I expect they need much more studio-quality training data than they would have for her.
The desire to create a "Her" might be real but explains why they chose a similar voice actress, made Sky the default, and continued to pursue Johansson to some day create the real thing.
Suspending the Sky voice looks guilty but it might be a temporary action while the legal team considers their response. There might be a non-zero risk of being found liable if there were directions in the voice casting process to seek a result comparable to Scarlet Johansson. You'd want to collect and assess correspondence to see if that's a possibility, which might take a while.
I'm much more concerned about the fact that the voice has simulated emotions behind it, leading people to trust their hallucinating AI even more.
Send a huge bill and then sue for payment. Let them fight the fight for you.
Let's say OpenAI did actually use Scarlett Johansson's voice. Who owns the audio that OpenAI used? Scarlett Johansson herself or the movie company that used the audio in their movie(s)? This might be a case of Scarlett Johansson vs the movie company, not Scarlett Johansson vs OpenAI, as OpenAI could have paid for them.
I've never seen "her" the movie and at certain inflections all I could hear is Scarlett Johansson's voice.
🔊 Vocal Comparison: ScarJo vs Samantha vs Sky
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Wish I had time yesterday to do a comparison myself, using better clips from Her and the newest OpenAI demo clips. Plus would get the ChatGPT app to speak some lines from Her.
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!
It sounds more like Rashida Jones.
Nearly 2 years ago we were considering moving to San Francisco and I began to search for jobs. I found one that I was well qualified for and took a deep look at, but backed out because it was full of all this bold-faced language about 40 hours on prem and how remote would never be permitted. The wording really seemed a bit shocking to me and I backed the heck away. It was OpenAI and they tried to fire Altman like a month later. I am so glad that I walked away from that, the whole thing is terrifying.