Scarlett Johansson ‘Shocked, Angered’ After OpenAI Bot Has Voice Eerily Like Hers
OpenAI pulled one of the voices from its latest iteration of ChatGPT after it drew comparisons to actress Scarlett Johansson and her role in the science fiction film, “Her.”
The tech company unveiled a demonstration of its new GPT-4o voice-enabled chatbot last week, which is set for public release in the coming days. The new update allows the popular program to receive voice commands, generate images from vocal prompts and eventually converse with users. GPT-4o includes five voice selections, including one called “Sky,” that viewers said sounded eerily similar to Johansson.
The actor described her conversations with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in a statement Monday, saying she was “shocked, angered and in disbelief” after the demonstration, noting she declined an offer to voice the new system when she was approached by the company last year.
“Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system,” Johansson said in a statement. “He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI.”
She went on to say she declined the offer “for personal reason.” Altman, she added, attempted to reach her two days before the demo was released, but “before we could connect, the system was out there.”
“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerie similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference,” Johansson said. She later added: “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.”
We’ve heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky. We are working to pause the use of Sky while we address them.
Read more about how we chose these voices: https://t.co/R8wwZjU36L— OpenAI (@OpenAI) May 20, 2024
OpenAI defended its work in a blog post on Sunday, saying its chatbots should not “deliberately” mimic a celebrity’s distinctive voice and that it had worked with voice actors to craft “Sky” and its other options.
“Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice,” the company said. “To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talents.”
But Johansson pointed to Altman’s self-described love of the movie “Her,” in which the actress voiced an operating system that Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with. After the demonstration, Altman shared a one-word post on X that appeared to reference the film.
“Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word ‘her,’” she wrote.
her
— Sam Altman (@sama) May 13, 2024
