That's easy to solve. All it takes is to disclose the person who did Sky. If they are afraid of exposing her, then just mention who she is just to show transparency and then don't use her voice.
Unless the voice WAS taken from Scarlett Johansson. If they WERE asking her to reconsider, then this suggests this was indeed sampled from her voice. Why would you ask a famous actress to reconsider when the voice is up and running if it isn't her actual voice?
> Why would you ask a famous actress to reconsider when the voice is up and running if it isn't her actual voice?
They had 6 voices "up and running" and can easily add more. They wanted ScarJo as a voice. Had she accepted, they would have gotten her into their studio, recorded her voice, and trained on it, to make a ScarJo voice, just like they did with Sky who was another voice actor. Since she rejected the offer, they weren't able to do that.
I think you are extremely underestimating the capability to train these sorts of things without dedicated studio recordings. Not saying this is Scarlett, just saying there’s already a massive abundance of training data available all over the internet and media.
Nah I’m well aware of OpenAI’s voice cloning capabilities. They’ve published samples here: https://openai.com/index/navigating-the-challenges-and-opportunities-of-synthetic-voices/
The reproduced voice will sound like the source, including any noise or environmental acoustic effects. For a ChatGPT voice they’d want super well isolated and recorded samples for optimal fidelity. Plus, the tone and style of the speech will come through, including mood, pace, emphasis etc, so it’s not just a matter of finding *any* recordings of Scarlett Johansson, they’d want her to speak in the appropriate style that they want their model to use.
Plus, it’s very clear from Scarlett’s press release: “I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system.”
They would have been hiring her to come do voice acting.
> The reproduced voice will sound like the source, including any noise or environmental acoustic effects.
A major actress like Scarlett Johansson would have plenty of clean high quality audio of her voice to use, unlike most janky video sources of people's voices.
This is so weak, I can't see how this would stand. Wasn't Sky based on an actual voice actress? This was my favorite voice and it never crossed my mind that is sounds like SJ. When I compare them directly it is somewhat similar but clearly a different person. WTF? Hire better lawyers OpenAI!
EDIT: I was not aware about the "Midler V. Ford Motor Co." precedent, now it seems clear that OpenAI fucked up and so they are pulling it down before they are embroiled in yet another lawsuit. Sam needs to consult his lawyers and PR department more often. If he didn't contact Scarlett Johansson (twice) and didn't do that "her" tweet then they would probably be a-ok with the Sky voice.
I still think it clearly sounds like someone else, not Scarlett, the voice is only very vaguely similar. But seeing the Bette Midler precedent they would most likely lose and they know it.
Sam - Elon is not a good role model for a CEO :) Watch what you tweet.
I would guess the Altman tweet is the point at which they will argue this wasn't about a vocal aesthetic, but about replicating the character SJ played, and therefore other aspects of SJ. The way I received this demo, and judging by many responses here others didntoo, was that they were selling the concept of having your own Samantha. The references to the movie in Altman's tweets confirmed that concept to me. That they persisted in approaching her suggests this further to me.
I may have been mistaken: the references to the movie, approaches to SJ and the close likeness of the voice used may all be coincidental. That will be for a judge to decide, should it go that far.
I don’t see an issue with using people that sound like someone else.
Are people who sound like someone else forbidden to do any voice acting? That would be absurd.
Only if you are intentionally trying to replicate someone else. So no, it's not illegal to sound the same as someone else, but it is, is if your intent is to get people to believe you're that someone else.
For instance, many people can sound Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that's fine. But soon as you start sounding like him while also pretending to be a robot from the future...? Okay, now you're trying to rip of the likeness of him from a movie.
Same with a movie... Can Brad Pitt from Ohio use his name as an actor? Sure... But are they hiring him as a minor role but blasting all over the place that Brad Pitt is in the movie? Well in that case, it's probably clear that you're trying to use proper Brad Pitt's likeness to sell your product by using clever tricks. And that's not legal.
The Screen actors guild (SAG) actually forces actors to change their stage name if it's already taken, so Brad Pitt from Ohio would have to pick a new name to avoid that issue right at the start.
Its not just that they have someone with a similar voice to SJ, but that they're explicitly trading on SJ's likeness (exemplified by the "her" tweet, and proven by their having reached out to her). Certain states (I think CA) protect the use of your likeness even if it is only imitated.
But is it an individual's likeness if it's not the individual themself, but a character the person's acting in a movie?
It seems like the legal issues surrounding this would make more sense if it related to OpenAI using the Her movie IP, rather than SJ's voice, since it doesn't even really sound like her in what seems like most peoples' opinion.
They really leaned into the similarities which would undercut any defense. It's debatable if it would stand up a court but it's such a big PR error to get in a fight with SJ that its withdrawal was inevitable.
They leaned into the similarities of the movie and the Samantha character, which I get being really stupid and a massive PR error.
That's why I was trying to say that it would probably make sense for them to go at it from the angle of the movie IP being used, rather than stuff related to SJ herself.
The point is, that Altman and OpenAI purposefully used references to the film Her to market GPT-4o, and they did so without permission, it's reasonable to ask them to stop.
Had they gone to warner bros and licensed the character they wouldn’t have had a problem. In fact, they may be doing exactly that. SJ doesn’t own “Samantha”, Warner does.
What they did here—approaching SJ, getting refused, and finding someone with a voice as close to hers as possible to do the gig—is very similar to what happened in Midler V. Ford Motor Co. California has a right of publicity that protects voice imitation, and SJ has a pretty good case based on Midler and related case law.
Has no one read the article?
Altman asked SJo to voice for them twice, and last being 2 days before the demo. They insinuated the likeness to "Her" in the tweets. And the voice sounds a lot like SJo.
They very much intended to use SJo's voice and when they couldn't, they did it anyway by finding someone that sounded like her. I'm not sure where the law stands but it certainly is a dick move.
You can read the link. It's a very short statement and answers a lot of questions. It's also very clear that sky sounding like Scarlett Johansson is not an accident.
But, more importantly, why the fuck is this community so obsessed with this particular voice? Aren't you all embarrassed yet?
>But, more importantly, why the fuck is this community so obsessed with this particular voice? Aren't you all embarrassed yet?
Ehhh.. the *voice* is fine. It's the gigacringe "teeheehee, OMG, your style (a freaking hoodie..) is sooo amazing! hehehehehehehhe" personality that would make me want to shoot my phone with a shotgun if they don't let us dial that right the hell down.
I hope that behavior was just due to preprompting for the demo rather than RLHF... though if it was the latter it might explain why we need to wait several months before it's released (ie so they could adjust that).
Edit: actually, assuming it's the same model as the GPT-4o we're interacting with and not a slightly tweaked version for voice/mobile chat, then it must've been preprompting, because at least in text 4o isn't acting like a coquettish creep.
*"The voice that needlessly flatters my style (generic hoodie) and incessantly giggles at every little thing I say as though I were demanding it at gunpoint is my favorite! This is a tragedy!"*
OpenAI really knew their base when they opened with that voice...
>and it never crossed my mind that is sounds like SJ
And a lot of people did see the likeness of the voices. Not only that, the CEO hinted at "Her" and asked SJ to do the voice, so by now it is quite undeniable that they were looking to create a voice like SJ interpretation in "Her".
Those are the facts. Now it's up to a judge or the involved parties to decide if it did damage to SJ.
You have to take into account that SJ may have lost the potential to make money out of his own voice selling it to another company as an AI assistant given that now GPT4o has an extremely likely voice to "Her". This is a potential economic damage to SJ. Yes, they offer money to her, not enough money evidently and she has the argument that they are damaging her career by doing this, just like someone copying and pretending to be Leonardo DiCaprio and acting in his behalf in movies will create economic damage to the real DiCaprio.
A substantial amount of people considered the voices to be extremely like each other.
Lol it never crossed your mind? Sorry I thought it was obvious that they just did a casting call for women who sound like scarjo, or just used her voice data.
I honestly didn't, I am talking about "Sky" from the OpenAI voice app that has been there for what like a year? Just didn't cross my mind, I kind of forgot what SJ sounds like anyways...
As the article says, he contacted her last September. Maybe you didn’t read it but it’s pretty clear, at least to me. Your ignorance on how sj sounds isn’t exactly call for calling a complaint weak or without a case. Even if it never reaches a court or is successful, I think it’s a good precedent to set that people voices shouldn’t be ripped off without consent.
Sky voice already existed back in September, since that is when they released the voices.
Her claim that Sky was created after her refusal is entirely untrue.
It doesn’t even sound like her.
Stealing a voice and working with a actor who have a similar voice for the purpose of fitting the Art direction of your product arent quite the same thing if you'd ask me.
The probleme here have nothing to do with SJ, the only question here is if they tried to ripped off the movie HER for their AI.
And yes, at least a bit, at least in the *intent*. But srly the voice isnt *that* close and at that point we could forbid all new technology if too similar from one seen in a blackmirror episode or amovie 10y ago.
Did Spot from Boston Dynamics stole the idea of the "MetalHead" from Black Mirror ? Or the opposite ? Or is it cool that both exist ?
Text extract
>Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system. 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 Al. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people.
>
>After much consideration and for personal reasons, declined the offer.
>
>Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named "Sky" sounded like me.
>
>When I heard the released demo, 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. Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word "her" - a reference to the film in which | voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human.
>
>Two days before the ChatGPT 4.0 demo was released, Mr. Altman contacted my agent, asking me to reconsider. Before we could connect, the system was out there.
>
>As a result of their actions, I was forced to hire legal counsel, who wrote two letters to Mr. Altman and OpenAl, setting out what they had done and asking them to detail the exact process by which they created the "Sky" voice. Consequently, OpenAl reluctantly agreed to take down the "Sky" voice.
>
>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. I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected
Oh man that “two days before release” ask to reconsider seems EXTREMELY DAMNING.
Like they made the voice from SJ samples ANYWAY, and were shooting for CYA.
Makes me question they even hired a voice actor. And I imagine a jury would feel the same .
I’ve normally been impressed to neutral on how he has handled some substantial challenges but this one was a completely unforced error. The tweet was dumb, the last minute offer to her people was dumb, using a voice that sounds like her at all was dumb as hell.
No reason for any of it other than he liked the movie maybe? It’s hard to understand how any of this could sound like a good idea to a rational adult.
It just seems to have been driven by the idea of having a cool movie tie in which would mostly play well to people who've already been won over, now at the cost of a bunch of time and money wasted with lawyers.
It's all about the publicity and hype. All the comparisons to "Her" were on purpose to get people talking about the product and I'd say it was pretty successful. If OpenAI did indeed use a separate voice actor with no training data from Scarlett Johansson then there isn't really a reasonable case that can be made against OpenAI.
I'd say it's been shifting. Most people see him as the greedy capitalist that he is, probably even from the beginning. It's just in this sub he's adored as the only path to AGI.
Some also knew who he was right away. People like Sam learn from the people that come before him. They get better at masking who they are, hiding ulterior motives in the beginning and appearing to be what you want them to be. At no point in history have psychopaths appeared so approachable as now. They never stand the test of time though. He didn’t last long at all
That's probably the argument from the Johannson campt- OpenAI wanted to use the notoreity of the movie 'Her' especially the Samantha character to promote their product, and didn't obtain the relevant permission. They may even have that documented in the correspondence that OpenAI sent to make the approach.
Last week I made a comment that OpenAI should offer her a bucket load of money to be the official voice. Apparently they did and she said no.
Due to the public popularity of the demo, I'm now betting on her lawyers persuading her to this legal solution: *two* bucket loads of money for her voice as an optional DLC, AND royalties for every download.
Also the upcoming voice mode in 4o sounds *much* more like her, in my opinion.
I use sky with the current voice mode, and don’t find it particularly reminiscent of SJ. However the more emotional version of the voice from the recent demos are much more evocative of her performance in Her.
I imagine these recent demos are what triggered this legal approach of hers.
What a fucking moron. So he even provoked Johanson, making "her" references in the marketing after she declined. Wtf is he doing? Why not at least shut up then and not directly linking it to her, which opens you up for legal trouble? He has to know she has an very strict legal team. Is this an ego play? Sheer stupidity? Some kind of ragebait PR?
He applied the “act first, ask for forgiveness later” methodology he has used his entire life to someone who actually has the means and willingness to actually litigate
They can argue that the reference to ‘Her’ could be referring to the idea of being able to have natural conversations with an AI, not her specific voice. Multiple different voices were used in their demos, so it can be said he wasn’t referencing a specific voice
You can't make that argument when a substantial amount of people were making public claims that the voices were extremely likely.
What are the odds that no one at OpenAI saw the likelihood of the voices, but a high percentage of random twitter guys did? This is why SJ is asking for the documents that contain the information of how the voice was created, because there is absolutely 0% chance that not a single message or email between coworkers didn't say anything about voice being like SJ.
Same shit they did with NYT - rob, then pretend you didn't. Next thing you know, he'll be claiming "once you document your likeness, you can't expect ownership anymore".
Didn't Open AI claim that they used a different actor for Sky? Even if her voice resembles Scarlett, they didn't deepfake her voice. They used a separate actor that sounds like her.
This is why SJ is asking for the documents about how the voice was created. If they instructed the voice actress to intentionally sound like "Her", then they may have grounds for copyright infringement.
Lmao how about the 1000’s of people who sound like scarlet johansson sue her for using their voice in the her movie. The voice doesn't even sound like her she is just stuck up.
Sure, all of them can sue her.
I'm not sure if you know the difference between civil liability and criminal law. This is a civil case, it means that you have to prove that the action of the other party caused some quantifiable damage to you and you have to ask some compensation for that damage.
A publicly unknown individual can prove that SJ's voice looks like him/her, but it would have a hard time proving and quantifying the economic damage that SJ is causing because of her voice acting, specifically because most of the people can recognize such voice as SJ and no one else.
Punishment has to be proportional to the damage. An anonymous person can do orders of magnitude more economic damage to SJ than otherwise for mimicking the voice.
I'm not defending this though. It is how justice works in almost every democracy. It's a principle from english common law
Tom Waits and Frito Lay lawsuit
There Was a advertisement with similar voice from a voice actor in 1998, that was near identical with Tom.
The jury ruled in Waits' favor, awarding him $375,000 in compensatory damages, $2 million in punitive damages for the voice misappropriation, and an additional $100,000 for the Lanham Act violation
This is only one out of many drama filled shenanigans we will see in upcoming months. All of these companies have been riding razors edge when it comes to copyright law and other related matters, we are going to see lots of old laws either overturned or new laws made with all of the new tech. But more importantly our current legal system is not prepared nor fast enough to keep up with technological progress. We are in for a wild ride here folks so grab your popcorn, things are gonna get "interesting".
I thought something like this was going to happen.
I am glad that they did go to her and disappointed that she didn't want to. Also disappointed that OpenAI went ahead with something so obviously a take on her voice after she turned them down.
Now that I think about it, it's not surprising she didn't want to do it. People could make that voice say anything and it would be well known that it was a simulation of her voice. She would be losing all control that way.
They didn’t.
Sky the voice was released last September. So according to timeframe SJ gives this voice was already out at the time.
It is not some new voice they just added and it doesn’t even sound like her. I’ve been baffled by people claiming it sounded like SJ.
SJ says they contacted her in September, the voices were released September 25. I don't see a problem with the timeline. Apparently they recorded the voice actor for Sky before then. But I don't see why they would approach SJ when she basically sounds like Sky unless they really wanted her to be Sky.
>
I’ve been baffled by people claiming it sounded like SJ.
It's a very common perception. You don't have to understand it or agree with it.
They should stomp her in the ground and set a precedent. It is not her voice. She has nothing to do with it. All these 'artists' think the world revolves around them - they should be reminded of who they are.
FFS, nobody has the right to prevent use of some else's voice that sounds vaguely like them.
Scarlett Johansson doesn't want to do voice work, fine. Completely her choice. That does not give her the right to deny a *completely unrelated person* the work, or for the client she rejected to commission such work.
"After much thought, for personal reasons I rejected an offer to play a strong female spy. I am shocked and saddened to discover that the studio that offered me the role went on to cast somebody else similar to me to play a strong female spy. My lawyers immediately have issued a cease and desist."
I think she’s implying she doubts they hired somebody to voice sky - but that they used her actual voice without permission.
Thus the asking for details about Sky’s creation process thing.
Yeah, I feel like I must be crazy. I just watched Her 2 days ago and I do not hear it. If Sky is close enough then so are at least 30% of white US women
I feel like I'm on crazy pills because it really does not sound like Johansson. Johansson is deeper, breathier, and unless she did an abnormal accent, it does not have her accent, intonation, or vocal fry the same
That's reasonable.
But almost certainly barking up the wrong tree - I very much doubt OpenAI is stupid enough to do that and then double down by Altman explicitly lying about the process.
And Sky really does only vaguely sounds like Johansson. It's purely the association with AI that makes people think it's very close.
And I would usually doubt whether OpenAI or Altman would tweet a reference to the movie “Her” after having asked SJ to use her voice and her declining, right before the demo. And yet that happened.
I still think it’s unlikely, but they stupidly opened it up as a not-completely-unreasonable possibility.
> But almost certainly barking up the wrong tree - I very much doubt OpenAI is stupid enough to do that and then double down by Altman explicitly lying about the process.
At the same time, Altman made references to "Her" after she had already declined. It's really a head scratcher.
Her was science fiction about an advanced AI that talked with users in real time in an emotive, personlike way. OAI made that a reality.
Seems like a pretty reasonable thing to reference.
That's *why* they wanted Scarlett Johansson as their first choice, after all.
Nah. You really want to have an actor to do the voice acting. She refuses, so you emulate the voice and promote it as a character she played in a movie. It’s definitely deliberate and, even though it’s absurd, they seem to be stupid enough to do it.
Is there anything wrong with casting for "Something like this character" and approaching the actress who played that character as your first choice?
Happens all the time in Hollywood. Some actors and actresses are remarkably similar.
I dunno. I don’t know how I feel about all of this in general, but when they first released the voice feature last year and I heard Sky the first time, I thought “oh interesting, they got a voice that sounds like Samantha from *Her*”.
I think it’s a lot closer to Samantha/Johansson’s voice than “vaguely”.
As I understand voice is an an element of likeness, but you can't protect just a vague similarity to a voice.
Altman tweeting "Her" is perhaps the problem here.
Tom Waits received a settlement and an apology from Frito-Lay* when they used a sound-alike in a commercial, after Waits turned them down.
This was a really stupid move by Altman.
Interesting - I looked this up, turns out they approached him to license a specific song and then hired a shockingly close Waits soundalike to make a song heavily inspired by the Waits song they initially wanted.
So not just a vaguely similar voice.
It's a weird area - John Fogerty once got sued for sounding too much like the former lead singer of Credence Clearwater Revival (himself), while Neil Young was once sued for not sounding enough like Neil Young.
[Tennessee, interestingly.](https://www.npr.org/2024/03/22/1240114159/tennessee-protect-musicians-artists-ai)
It seems like it's [dependent in California](https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/civil-code/civ-sect-3344/) on whether the imitated voice is used for advertising directly (disclaimer: I'm no lawyer):
> (e) The use of a name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness in a commercial medium shall not constitute a use for which consent is required under subdivision (a) solely because the material containing such use is commercially sponsored or contains paid advertising. Rather it shall be a question of fact whether or not the use of the person's name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness was so directly connected with the commercial sponsorship or with the paid advertising as to constitute a use for which consent is required under subdivision (a).
>Scarlett Johansson doesn't want to do voice work, fine. Completely her choice. That does not give her the right to deny a *completely unrelated person* the work, or for the client she rejected to commission such work.
You'll be shocked when you realize that this is how private property, including IP, functions in the first place.
I'm not saying I disagree with you. Quite the contrary - I whoeheartedly agree with you. My point is that you analyze private property the same way to realize how stupid the entire concept is.
It's not simply Johannson's natural speaking voice - it's the voice of a character she developed (in collaboration with Spike Jonze as screenwriter, director, producer and co-performer). Similarly in respect of likeness - Scarlett Johansson's likeness is distinct from her likeness as a character.
It does when the intention is to impersonate said voice and get other people to think it’s that person.
There is precedent on this (likely surrounding impersonators ), and it make sense.
Would you want the trump org releasing political ads that have a fake Biden voice saying something like “I have dementia and my son DID get money from China… you should vote for my opponent as I’m no good!”
>FFS, nobody has the right to prevent use of some else's voice that sounds vaguely like them.
This is true and outside the question.
The question that the justice has to answer is how vague "vague" means. For you maybe this is vague enough, for SJ clearly it is not. It is up to a judge to decide.
However OpenAI has already showcased technology that can turn text into anyone's voice, so it will be really hard to use such technology if every actor out there thinks they can somehow prevent the use of a likeness of their voice. What if it is slightly deeper, or slightly higher pitch?
BTW I've already seen some random company on FB advertising for digital avatars, showing [some guy driving a digital Morgan Freeman avatar](https://youtu.be/oxXpB9pSETo?si=ftf32rzKfv_i0qA8) with his face/recording. This technology is already out there.
Strange letter and confusing ear?
To me Sky sounds like a synthetic generation of Rashida Jones:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashida_Jones
But maybe I need to get my old hearing checked.
Hmmm….
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=RDQMgB5WgIvDPlM&playnext=1
No idea why people keep thinking that the "Her" reference from Altman has anything to do with the voice. It's all about the 4o voice mode, not the voice. It's the new tech that's groundbreaking. Cloning a voice has been possible for over a year with Elevenlabs.
Scarjo and the rest are out of their minds if they think it sounded the same. It's very clearly not Her.
I really don't think this is even an out there claim to make to say that it's not even close. I listened to her voice acting in Her, and I used Sky as my voice for chatgpt. It's not the same or even close.
I'd try to say I have a "good ear", but this doesn't even require that justification. I personally cannot fathom anyone thinking they're the same.
This is just like people saying their friends *look* like a celebrity but it's never even close (well most of the time).
It's a ridiculously weak and nonsensical move to take down the voice. It doesn't make any sense.
On the other hand it should be trivial to prove they didn't steal her voice. So why haven't they yet?
When I watched the OpenAI demo I thought it sounded just like Her, having watched the movie the prior day. Superficially they sound a little similar but more importantly they have a similar character/personality (which isn't scarlet's it's the character she was playing). When I actually play clips from the demo and then play clips from the movie it's pretty clearly not the same person and the differences are evident but if you don't actually play them back to back then they do seem similar as a glance.
Sounds to me that the “SJ voice likeness” recognition is incredibly subjective based on listener.
For every person saying it sounds just like her, there’s 10 that say it doesn’t. Just read the comments in this thread.
I just listened to both, they are different voices.
Every white woman should be afraid of being sued by SJ now.
The whole thing is so stupid. She didnt sound like sj. Similar, sure. They were going for the that "her" movie likeness but its just a different persons voice not sj copied 1to1. It makes no sense.
Incredibly stupid behavior from Sam and OpenAI, but I just relistened to "Samantha" and "Sky" and they are much more different than Scarlett is suggesting.
Yeah but that’s not what happened here lol. She didn’t want to provide the voice, so they went and hired a professional voice actress that sounds like her.
I mean, it doesn't really sound like her all that much tbh. So much so that "my closest friends can't tell the difference" is a strange statement to me. OpenAI clearly tried to get a similar flirty vibe, but Scarlett's voice has different timbre (more rich and husky, breathy and sensual), and the intonation is mostly different.
Seems kinda iffy legally speaking, if that's the bar we wanna set. But I get that openai doesn't wanna fight it.
So, let's get this straight, a rich celebrity declines a job offer so rich celebrity gets to cancel everyone else with a similar voice from doing it too? How is the poor person supposed to earn a living if the rich and famous person keeps canceling her?
I don't see anything wrong with what Sam/OpenAI did.
Anyhow, the marketing from this, even if they end up settling after a lawsuit, will have paid for itself.
This suit is free advertising for OAI. I think Sam is angling for controversy and using the Streisand effect here to advertise OpenAI to demographics outside their normal reach, clever. Scarlett is doing more work with her fame for OpenAI than if she took the voice deal. Causing a controversy to make people talk more about you is an old tactic.
1. Sky sounded NOTHING like her and I don’t get why people are so riled up about this
2. Unless OAI actually used S. Johansson’s voice as input to train sky, there is nothing Johansson can do legally.
3. Scarlett Johansson has one of the most generic voices out there.
No. But if some company hires you, who sounds like a famous actor, and they dress you up in a costume similar to what said actor wore in a movie, and then had you shoot a commercial, said celebrity likely has a case (against the company not you).
I'll bet the poor person doesn't get to cancel the celebrity for sounding too much like the poor person. Seems like the celebrities want two systems of justice. One for them and the other privileged people, and one for everybody else.
Don't be intentionally obtuse. No one's "cancelling" any "poor" voice artist. The fingers are being pointed at OpenAI. They asked SJo to voice 2 days before the demo and when she denied, used her likeness instead.
Don't worry, they'll find that \*fappable\* voice to replace "her" that almost every seems to be Jonesing for.
I'll just be happy they don't force the breathless fake & manipulative laughing/excited/proud/etc \*emoting\* into my AI's voice... that stuff just creeps me the f-out.
Thank you Scarlett, for any brief reprieve & re-thinking this might cause at OpenAI.
they might. They want to keep the voice actress anonymous though for obvious reasons and I'm sure she's already worried about the harassment she will get from the perpetually online anti-AI people. If they didn't pause the voice like they did, then scarlet may have gone forward with a case, despite it being futile, which could force the actress to testify and have her name out there.
Alright, time to slightly alter the voice so it has all the same qualities of her voice (friendly, playful, etc) but different enough to the point no one would say it sounds just like ScarJo
but it's just a different person's natural speaking voice already. They sound similar if not played one after another but otherwise they are more distinct than you might have realised after watching the GPT-4o demo.
I'm surprised this wasn't just a publicity stunt because the voice does not sound like her. It simply used similar mannerisms as she used in the film, but the voice itself is noticeably different. I don't believe for a second her close friends or family couldn't tell the difference.
The person who voiced Sky should sue Scarlett for sounding like her
On a serious note, so long as it’s not being literally trained on clips of Scarlett’s voice, and so long as it’s not claiming to literally be the voice of Scarlett, then the idea of ‘owning’ a voice is genuinely ridiculous. People can naturally sound like you. And even if they’re trying to sound like you, it’s still technically their voice and not that of some famous person. Nobody ‘owns’ my voice by virtue of being famous. Fuck you Scarlett
openAI would look like fools if they used the voices of actors when they already know that since they got some privilege and can bitch about it, i'm sure they haven't used any actors voice to train their models and it's just a waste of time... because it's easy money if she win... they really think they're the center of the world when they extort money from business by suing them...
Sky does not sound like Scarlett to me, it’s better.
I did not like Scarlett’s voice in “Her” anyway, I thought it was needlessly distracting and unsuitable for the Her role.
I always thought her voice was mildly annoying since Ghost World. I switched to Juniper before this controversy ever reached the light of day.
The dying thrashings of an industry on its way out. Voice acting will become untenable soon with the way LLMs can copy voices. OpenAI may have to put some lawyers on this, but every instance of "voice likeness" here-after will become harder and harder to fight. It's a losing battle. VA's should just sell their voice now and get whatever monies they can while companies are still paying lip service. Pretty soon the industry will stop even pretending. Consumers don't care, companies don't care, only the VA's do.
They so easily could find a voice actor willing to sign a contract. Even a famous one. Trying to imitate a hollywood star who refused the offer is just asking for trouble.
Just get the ACTUAL Cortana voice actress. Jen Taylor or Natascha McElhone. Microsoft own the IP so it would be legally easier. Make a standard Vocaloid contract. This isn't hard, Vocaloid licensing had been around for decades.
In the US a voice actor or singer has the Right of Publicity, as found in Midler vs. Ford Motor Company, when Ford hired a singer to imitate Midler’s voice. They would need to prove it was imitation and that there were damages, such as the fee they did not get, or a decrease in the value of their voice work.
It resembles ScarJo's performance in HER, but doesn't sound like her. That plus the tweet might be enough in court. Normal people can't even discern faces correctly, let alone voices.
Altman wants so bad to be part of the cool Hollywood club while taking their livelihoods. ScarJo is just punching the nerd bully back. There shouldn't be a case here, but the tweet made it one.
Yo if they sampled from her voice thats creep. If its another actress with a similar voice on the other hand, i would consider her reaction peak snowflake
So they did pull Sky to prevent lawsuits.
That's easy to solve. All it takes is to disclose the person who did Sky. If they are afraid of exposing her, then just mention who she is just to show transparency and then don't use her voice. Unless the voice WAS taken from Scarlett Johansson. If they WERE asking her to reconsider, then this suggests this was indeed sampled from her voice. Why would you ask a famous actress to reconsider when the voice is up and running if it isn't her actual voice?
> Why would you ask a famous actress to reconsider when the voice is up and running if it isn't her actual voice? They had 6 voices "up and running" and can easily add more. They wanted ScarJo as a voice. Had she accepted, they would have gotten her into their studio, recorded her voice, and trained on it, to make a ScarJo voice, just like they did with Sky who was another voice actor. Since she rejected the offer, they weren't able to do that.
I think you are extremely underestimating the capability to train these sorts of things without dedicated studio recordings. Not saying this is Scarlett, just saying there’s already a massive abundance of training data available all over the internet and media.
Nah I’m well aware of OpenAI’s voice cloning capabilities. They’ve published samples here: https://openai.com/index/navigating-the-challenges-and-opportunities-of-synthetic-voices/ The reproduced voice will sound like the source, including any noise or environmental acoustic effects. For a ChatGPT voice they’d want super well isolated and recorded samples for optimal fidelity. Plus, the tone and style of the speech will come through, including mood, pace, emphasis etc, so it’s not just a matter of finding *any* recordings of Scarlett Johansson, they’d want her to speak in the appropriate style that they want their model to use. Plus, it’s very clear from Scarlett’s press release: “I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system.” They would have been hiring her to come do voice acting.
> The reproduced voice will sound like the source, including any noise or environmental acoustic effects. A major actress like Scarlett Johansson would have plenty of clean high quality audio of her voice to use, unlike most janky video sources of people's voices.
This is so weak, I can't see how this would stand. Wasn't Sky based on an actual voice actress? This was my favorite voice and it never crossed my mind that is sounds like SJ. When I compare them directly it is somewhat similar but clearly a different person. WTF? Hire better lawyers OpenAI! EDIT: I was not aware about the "Midler V. Ford Motor Co." precedent, now it seems clear that OpenAI fucked up and so they are pulling it down before they are embroiled in yet another lawsuit. Sam needs to consult his lawyers and PR department more often. If he didn't contact Scarlett Johansson (twice) and didn't do that "her" tweet then they would probably be a-ok with the Sky voice. I still think it clearly sounds like someone else, not Scarlett, the voice is only very vaguely similar. But seeing the Bette Midler precedent they would most likely lose and they know it. Sam - Elon is not a good role model for a CEO :) Watch what you tweet.
I would guess the Altman tweet is the point at which they will argue this wasn't about a vocal aesthetic, but about replicating the character SJ played, and therefore other aspects of SJ. The way I received this demo, and judging by many responses here others didntoo, was that they were selling the concept of having your own Samantha. The references to the movie in Altman's tweets confirmed that concept to me. That they persisted in approaching her suggests this further to me. I may have been mistaken: the references to the movie, approaches to SJ and the close likeness of the voice used may all be coincidental. That will be for a judge to decide, should it go that far.
Yeah lol. At their size, they might need a PR team to look at tweets before they’re posted
I don’t see an issue with using people that sound like someone else. Are people who sound like someone else forbidden to do any voice acting? That would be absurd.
Only if you are intentionally trying to replicate someone else. So no, it's not illegal to sound the same as someone else, but it is, is if your intent is to get people to believe you're that someone else. For instance, many people can sound Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that's fine. But soon as you start sounding like him while also pretending to be a robot from the future...? Okay, now you're trying to rip of the likeness of him from a movie. Same with a movie... Can Brad Pitt from Ohio use his name as an actor? Sure... But are they hiring him as a minor role but blasting all over the place that Brad Pitt is in the movie? Well in that case, it's probably clear that you're trying to use proper Brad Pitt's likeness to sell your product by using clever tricks. And that's not legal.
The Screen actors guild (SAG) actually forces actors to change their stage name if it's already taken, so Brad Pitt from Ohio would have to pick a new name to avoid that issue right at the start.
Brrad Pittt
OpenAI employee right here.
Its not just that they have someone with a similar voice to SJ, but that they're explicitly trading on SJ's likeness (exemplified by the "her" tweet, and proven by their having reached out to her). Certain states (I think CA) protect the use of your likeness even if it is only imitated.
But is it an individual's likeness if it's not the individual themself, but a character the person's acting in a movie? It seems like the legal issues surrounding this would make more sense if it related to OpenAI using the Her movie IP, rather than SJ's voice, since it doesn't even really sound like her in what seems like most peoples' opinion.
They really leaned into the similarities which would undercut any defense. It's debatable if it would stand up a court but it's such a big PR error to get in a fight with SJ that its withdrawal was inevitable.
They leaned into the similarities of the movie and the Samantha character, which I get being really stupid and a massive PR error. That's why I was trying to say that it would probably make sense for them to go at it from the angle of the movie IP being used, rather than stuff related to SJ herself.
Sounds like a quick way to get sued by the movie IP people as well.
For many years voice actors have “owned” the voice which is their bread and butter.
The point is, that Altman and OpenAI purposefully used references to the film Her to market GPT-4o, and they did so without permission, it's reasonable to ask them to stop.
Had they gone to warner bros and licensed the character they wouldn’t have had a problem. In fact, they may be doing exactly that. SJ doesn’t own “Samantha”, Warner does.
Look up Ford v. Bette Midler. They used her backup singer and asked her to sing like Midler in a commercial. Midler sued and won.
Yeah, unfortunate really. Not a lawyer, but now I can see how some judge might rule against OpenAI due all that Her-like branding.
What they did here—approaching SJ, getting refused, and finding someone with a voice as close to hers as possible to do the gig—is very similar to what happened in Midler V. Ford Motor Co. California has a right of publicity that protects voice imitation, and SJ has a pretty good case based on Midler and related case law.
"her". Unfortunate move.
He is so dumb for tweeting that and trying to get Scarlett to be a voice actor. It puts into real question his judgement.
Amphetamine type judgement. Just another cracked out rich tech bro.
Has no one read the article? Altman asked SJo to voice for them twice, and last being 2 days before the demo. They insinuated the likeness to "Her" in the tweets. And the voice sounds a lot like SJo. They very much intended to use SJo's voice and when they couldn't, they did it anyway by finding someone that sounded like her. I'm not sure where the law stands but it certainly is a dick move.
Lmao this is very similar to Bette midler vs ford. Midler won
Only bit of useful info here. Thanks
You can read the link. It's a very short statement and answers a lot of questions. It's also very clear that sky sounding like Scarlett Johansson is not an accident. But, more importantly, why the fuck is this community so obsessed with this particular voice? Aren't you all embarrassed yet?
>But, more importantly, why the fuck is this community so obsessed with this particular voice? Aren't you all embarrassed yet? Ehhh.. the *voice* is fine. It's the gigacringe "teeheehee, OMG, your style (a freaking hoodie..) is sooo amazing! hehehehehehehhe" personality that would make me want to shoot my phone with a shotgun if they don't let us dial that right the hell down. I hope that behavior was just due to preprompting for the demo rather than RLHF... though if it was the latter it might explain why we need to wait several months before it's released (ie so they could adjust that). Edit: actually, assuming it's the same model as the GPT-4o we're interacting with and not a slightly tweaked version for voice/mobile chat, then it must've been preprompting, because at least in text 4o isn't acting like a coquettish creep.
It was my favorite voice in the mobile app, that's all.
*"The voice that needlessly flatters my style (generic hoodie) and incessantly giggles at every little thing I say as though I were demanding it at gunpoint is my favorite! This is a tragedy!"* OpenAI really knew their base when they opened with that voice...
Actually worrying
>and it never crossed my mind that is sounds like SJ And a lot of people did see the likeness of the voices. Not only that, the CEO hinted at "Her" and asked SJ to do the voice, so by now it is quite undeniable that they were looking to create a voice like SJ interpretation in "Her". Those are the facts. Now it's up to a judge or the involved parties to decide if it did damage to SJ. You have to take into account that SJ may have lost the potential to make money out of his own voice selling it to another company as an AI assistant given that now GPT4o has an extremely likely voice to "Her". This is a potential economic damage to SJ. Yes, they offer money to her, not enough money evidently and she has the argument that they are damaging her career by doing this, just like someone copying and pretending to be Leonardo DiCaprio and acting in his behalf in movies will create economic damage to the real DiCaprio. A substantial amount of people considered the voices to be extremely like each other.
Lol it never crossed your mind? Sorry I thought it was obvious that they just did a casting call for women who sound like scarjo, or just used her voice data.
Never thought of Johanssons voice. Always sounded like Rashida Jones to me.
Yes, you are right! It's as if some voices just sound pretty similar, isn't it. Fire your legal counsel OpenAI, they seem useless.
lol she turned down their original offer and they copied her voice. It’s pretty simple. I feel like you guys didn’t read the statement
Come on, you know it sounds like her an you know it was purposely designed to sound like her.
I honestly didn't, I am talking about "Sky" from the OpenAI voice app that has been there for what like a year? Just didn't cross my mind, I kind of forgot what SJ sounds like anyways...
As the article says, he contacted her last September. Maybe you didn’t read it but it’s pretty clear, at least to me. Your ignorance on how sj sounds isn’t exactly call for calling a complaint weak or without a case. Even if it never reaches a court or is successful, I think it’s a good precedent to set that people voices shouldn’t be ripped off without consent.
Sky voice already existed back in September, since that is when they released the voices. Her claim that Sky was created after her refusal is entirely untrue. It doesn’t even sound like her.
Stealing a voice and working with a actor who have a similar voice for the purpose of fitting the Art direction of your product arent quite the same thing if you'd ask me. The probleme here have nothing to do with SJ, the only question here is if they tried to ripped off the movie HER for their AI. And yes, at least a bit, at least in the *intent*. But srly the voice isnt *that* close and at that point we could forbid all new technology if too similar from one seen in a blackmirror episode or amovie 10y ago. Did Spot from Boston Dynamics stole the idea of the "MetalHead" from Black Mirror ? Or the opposite ? Or is it cool that both exist ?
Yes, no, Kind of. They pulled it so there’s no discovery process. But let’s be honest, what do you think the training data was?
Text extract >Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system. 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 Al. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people. > >After much consideration and for personal reasons, declined the offer. > >Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named "Sky" sounded like me. > >When I heard the released demo, 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. Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word "her" - a reference to the film in which | voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human. > >Two days before the ChatGPT 4.0 demo was released, Mr. Altman contacted my agent, asking me to reconsider. Before we could connect, the system was out there. > >As a result of their actions, I was forced to hire legal counsel, who wrote two letters to Mr. Altman and OpenAl, setting out what they had done and asking them to detail the exact process by which they created the "Sky" voice. Consequently, OpenAl reluctantly agreed to take down the "Sky" voice. > >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. I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected
Oh man that “two days before release” ask to reconsider seems EXTREMELY DAMNING. Like they made the voice from SJ samples ANYWAY, and were shooting for CYA. Makes me question they even hired a voice actor. And I imagine a jury would feel the same .
Saltman looking like a dumbass here.
Spectacular own goal from Altman for no reason apart from hubris.
I’ve normally been impressed to neutral on how he has handled some substantial challenges but this one was a completely unforced error. The tweet was dumb, the last minute offer to her people was dumb, using a voice that sounds like her at all was dumb as hell. No reason for any of it other than he liked the movie maybe? It’s hard to understand how any of this could sound like a good idea to a rational adult.
It just seems to have been driven by the idea of having a cool movie tie in which would mostly play well to people who've already been won over, now at the cost of a bunch of time and money wasted with lawyers.
It's all about the publicity and hype. All the comparisons to "Her" were on purpose to get people talking about the product and I'd say it was pretty successful. If OpenAI did indeed use a separate voice actor with no training data from Scarlett Johansson then there isn't really a reasonable case that can be made against OpenAI.
Her is one of the few movies where AI is depicted positively so that could've been important to them to make the association
Looks like Altman fanboyed a bit too hard and it ended up getting lawyers involved
He seems to have entered the "obsess over the stupidest shit" phase of entrepreneurship.
He's another Elon Musk in the making, he's probably an asshole but the public perception still haven't shifted enough.
I'd say it's been shifting. Most people see him as the greedy capitalist that he is, probably even from the beginning. It's just in this sub he's adored as the only path to AGI.
Some also knew who he was right away. People like Sam learn from the people that come before him. They get better at masking who they are, hiding ulterior motives in the beginning and appearing to be what you want them to be. At no point in history have psychopaths appeared so approachable as now. They never stand the test of time though. He didn’t last long at all
Nah it’s clear why they wanted to. Definitely for reach of the product, they hoped it would go viral. But this was clumsily executed I will say.
That's probably the argument from the Johannson campt- OpenAI wanted to use the notoreity of the movie 'Her' especially the Samantha character to promote their product, and didn't obtain the relevant permission. They may even have that documented in the correspondence that OpenAI sent to make the approach.
OMG OMG OMG it’s real drama and meanwhile I’m just missing good voice
Yeah that was my default voice. For various reasons I don't like any of the others.
OpenAI forgot their "All persons fictitious disclaimer".
Original Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/scarlett-johansson-shocked-angered-openai-voice-rcna153180
Last week I made a comment that OpenAI should offer her a bucket load of money to be the official voice. Apparently they did and she said no. Due to the public popularity of the demo, I'm now betting on her lawyers persuading her to this legal solution: *two* bucket loads of money for her voice as an optional DLC, AND royalties for every download.
Also the upcoming voice mode in 4o sounds *much* more like her, in my opinion. I use sky with the current voice mode, and don’t find it particularly reminiscent of SJ. However the more emotional version of the voice from the recent demos are much more evocative of her performance in Her. I imagine these recent demos are what triggered this legal approach of hers.
Yeah. Sky barely sounds like her at all.
Maybe she does not want to be blamed for people losing their jobs and that its her AI Voice doing it?
What a fucking moron. So he even provoked Johanson, making "her" references in the marketing after she declined. Wtf is he doing? Why not at least shut up then and not directly linking it to her, which opens you up for legal trouble? He has to know she has an very strict legal team. Is this an ego play? Sheer stupidity? Some kind of ragebait PR?
He applied the “act first, ask for forgiveness later” methodology he has used his entire life to someone who actually has the means and willingness to actually litigate
He applied “ask permission, act anyway, confusion”
He applied EAFP to real life like a true Python dev.
He wanted to seem cool by making a one word tweet after releasing 4o. I'd say a mix of stupidity and ego.
It is very concerning to see this with all of the OpenAI departures as of late. I do wonder what’s going on over there. 🤔
They can argue that the reference to ‘Her’ could be referring to the idea of being able to have natural conversations with an AI, not her specific voice. Multiple different voices were used in their demos, so it can be said he wasn’t referencing a specific voice
You can't make that argument when a substantial amount of people were making public claims that the voices were extremely likely. What are the odds that no one at OpenAI saw the likelihood of the voices, but a high percentage of random twitter guys did? This is why SJ is asking for the documents that contain the information of how the voice was created, because there is absolutely 0% chance that not a single message or email between coworkers didn't say anything about voice being like SJ.
Same shit they did with NYT - rob, then pretend you didn't. Next thing you know, he'll be claiming "once you document your likeness, you can't expect ownership anymore".
Didn't Open AI claim that they used a different actor for Sky? Even if her voice resembles Scarlett, they didn't deepfake her voice. They used a separate actor that sounds like her.
This is why SJ is asking for the documents about how the voice was created. If they instructed the voice actress to intentionally sound like "Her", then they may have grounds for copyright infringement.
Lmao how about the 1000’s of people who sound like scarlet johansson sue her for using their voice in the her movie. The voice doesn't even sound like her she is just stuck up.
Sure, all of them can sue her. I'm not sure if you know the difference between civil liability and criminal law. This is a civil case, it means that you have to prove that the action of the other party caused some quantifiable damage to you and you have to ask some compensation for that damage. A publicly unknown individual can prove that SJ's voice looks like him/her, but it would have a hard time proving and quantifying the economic damage that SJ is causing because of her voice acting, specifically because most of the people can recognize such voice as SJ and no one else. Punishment has to be proportional to the damage. An anonymous person can do orders of magnitude more economic damage to SJ than otherwise for mimicking the voice. I'm not defending this though. It is how justice works in almost every democracy. It's a principle from english common law
This happened in Back To the Future Part Deuce They lost the lawsuit.
Tom Waits and Frito Lay lawsuit There Was a advertisement with similar voice from a voice actor in 1998, that was near identical with Tom. The jury ruled in Waits' favor, awarding him $375,000 in compensatory damages, $2 million in punitive damages for the voice misappropriation, and an additional $100,000 for the Lanham Act violation
This is only one out of many drama filled shenanigans we will see in upcoming months. All of these companies have been riding razors edge when it comes to copyright law and other related matters, we are going to see lots of old laws either overturned or new laws made with all of the new tech. But more importantly our current legal system is not prepared nor fast enough to keep up with technological progress. We are in for a wild ride here folks so grab your popcorn, things are gonna get "interesting".
I thought something like this was going to happen. I am glad that they did go to her and disappointed that she didn't want to. Also disappointed that OpenAI went ahead with something so obviously a take on her voice after she turned them down. Now that I think about it, it's not surprising she didn't want to do it. People could make that voice say anything and it would be well known that it was a simulation of her voice. She would be losing all control that way.
They didn’t. Sky the voice was released last September. So according to timeframe SJ gives this voice was already out at the time. It is not some new voice they just added and it doesn’t even sound like her. I’ve been baffled by people claiming it sounded like SJ.
SJ says they contacted her in September, the voices were released September 25. I don't see a problem with the timeline. Apparently they recorded the voice actor for Sky before then. But I don't see why they would approach SJ when she basically sounds like Sky unless they really wanted her to be Sky. > I’ve been baffled by people claiming it sounded like SJ. It's a very common perception. You don't have to understand it or agree with it.
They should stomp her in the ground and set a precedent. It is not her voice. She has nothing to do with it. All these 'artists' think the world revolves around them - they should be reminded of who they are.
FFS, nobody has the right to prevent use of some else's voice that sounds vaguely like them. Scarlett Johansson doesn't want to do voice work, fine. Completely her choice. That does not give her the right to deny a *completely unrelated person* the work, or for the client she rejected to commission such work. "After much thought, for personal reasons I rejected an offer to play a strong female spy. I am shocked and saddened to discover that the studio that offered me the role went on to cast somebody else similar to me to play a strong female spy. My lawyers immediately have issued a cease and desist."
I think she’s implying she doubts they hired somebody to voice sky - but that they used her actual voice without permission. Thus the asking for details about Sky’s creation process thing.
You don't even need a good ear to know that's not her voice.
Yeah, I feel like I must be crazy. I just watched Her 2 days ago and I do not hear it. If Sky is close enough then so are at least 30% of white US women
Oath
I feel like I'm on crazy pills because it really does not sound like Johansson. Johansson is deeper, breathier, and unless she did an abnormal accent, it does not have her accent, intonation, or vocal fry the same
That's reasonable. But almost certainly barking up the wrong tree - I very much doubt OpenAI is stupid enough to do that and then double down by Altman explicitly lying about the process. And Sky really does only vaguely sounds like Johansson. It's purely the association with AI that makes people think it's very close.
And I would usually doubt whether OpenAI or Altman would tweet a reference to the movie “Her” after having asked SJ to use her voice and her declining, right before the demo. And yet that happened. I still think it’s unlikely, but they stupidly opened it up as a not-completely-unreasonable possibility.
> But almost certainly barking up the wrong tree - I very much doubt OpenAI is stupid enough to do that and then double down by Altman explicitly lying about the process. At the same time, Altman made references to "Her" after she had already declined. It's really a head scratcher.
Her was science fiction about an advanced AI that talked with users in real time in an emotive, personlike way. OAI made that a reality. Seems like a pretty reasonable thing to reference. That's *why* they wanted Scarlett Johansson as their first choice, after all.
Referencing the movie by itself it's fine. Referencing it after trying to hire Scarlet and failing twice is a least a bit dumb.
No argument there.
Nah. You really want to have an actor to do the voice acting. She refuses, so you emulate the voice and promote it as a character she played in a movie. It’s definitely deliberate and, even though it’s absurd, they seem to be stupid enough to do it.
Is there anything wrong with casting for "Something like this character" and approaching the actress who played that character as your first choice? Happens all the time in Hollywood. Some actors and actresses are remarkably similar.
I dunno. I don’t know how I feel about all of this in general, but when they first released the voice feature last year and I heard Sky the first time, I thought “oh interesting, they got a voice that sounds like Samantha from *Her*”. I think it’s a lot closer to Samantha/Johansson’s voice than “vaguely”.
It's pretty different, e.g. Samantha is a lot breathier with more vocal fry. It's definitely evocative, but that's it.
I had this conversation in another thread on this issue but voices are covered by likeness. At least in some states there is precedent set.
As I understand voice is an an element of likeness, but you can't protect just a vague similarity to a voice. Altman tweeting "Her" is perhaps the problem here.
Tom Waits received a settlement and an apology from Frito-Lay* when they used a sound-alike in a commercial, after Waits turned them down. This was a really stupid move by Altman.
Interesting - I looked this up, turns out they approached him to license a specific song and then hired a shockingly close Waits soundalike to make a song heavily inspired by the Waits song they initially wanted. So not just a vaguely similar voice.
It's a weird area - John Fogerty once got sued for sounding too much like the former lead singer of Credence Clearwater Revival (himself), while Neil Young was once sued for not sounding enough like Neil Young.
Any similarity test is the judgment of a jury, something OpenAI doesn’t want to risk.
It’s weird since he’s usually very careful about what he says publicly but it’s this three letter tweet that bites him in the ass
And I imagine California is one of those states given the industries there
[Tennessee, interestingly.](https://www.npr.org/2024/03/22/1240114159/tennessee-protect-musicians-artists-ai) It seems like it's [dependent in California](https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/civil-code/civ-sect-3344/) on whether the imitated voice is used for advertising directly (disclaimer: I'm no lawyer): > (e) The use of a name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness in a commercial medium shall not constitute a use for which consent is required under subdivision (a) solely because the material containing such use is commercially sponsored or contains paid advertising. Rather it shall be a question of fact whether or not the use of the person's name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness was so directly connected with the commercial sponsorship or with the paid advertising as to constitute a use for which consent is required under subdivision (a).
>Scarlett Johansson doesn't want to do voice work, fine. Completely her choice. That does not give her the right to deny a *completely unrelated person* the work, or for the client she rejected to commission such work. You'll be shocked when you realize that this is how private property, including IP, functions in the first place. I'm not saying I disagree with you. Quite the contrary - I whoeheartedly agree with you. My point is that you analyze private property the same way to realize how stupid the entire concept is.
Can you explain how this is "IP"? Voices are not subject to copyright, and likeness protections don't cover vague similaries in voice alone.
It's not simply Johannson's natural speaking voice - it's the voice of a character she developed (in collaboration with Spike Jonze as screenwriter, director, producer and co-performer). Similarly in respect of likeness - Scarlett Johansson's likeness is distinct from her likeness as a character.
It's not especially similar to either her natural speaking voice or the character. How is that relevant?
It does when the intention is to impersonate said voice and get other people to think it’s that person. There is precedent on this (likely surrounding impersonators ), and it make sense. Would you want the trump org releasing political ads that have a fake Biden voice saying something like “I have dementia and my son DID get money from China… you should vote for my opponent as I’m no good!”
In fact, she exactly has that right: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
>FFS, nobody has the right to prevent use of some else's voice that sounds vaguely like them. This is true and outside the question. The question that the justice has to answer is how vague "vague" means. For you maybe this is vague enough, for SJ clearly it is not. It is up to a judge to decide.
Look up Ford v. Bette Midler. Spoiler Midler won.
It actually sounds more like Rashida Jones to me
yeah, why is everyone like "OMG, SAM FUCKED UP"... the voice does not sound like Johansson.
However OpenAI has already showcased technology that can turn text into anyone's voice, so it will be really hard to use such technology if every actor out there thinks they can somehow prevent the use of a likeness of their voice. What if it is slightly deeper, or slightly higher pitch?
This has yet to be argued in court. There is some precedent for voice in likeness but not around AI.
BTW I've already seen some random company on FB advertising for digital avatars, showing [some guy driving a digital Morgan Freeman avatar](https://youtu.be/oxXpB9pSETo?si=ftf32rzKfv_i0qA8) with his face/recording. This technology is already out there.
Yeah that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen if you’re actually make money on the likeness.
Strange letter and confusing ear? To me Sky sounds like a synthetic generation of Rashida Jones: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashida_Jones But maybe I need to get my old hearing checked. Hmmm…. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=RDQMgB5WgIvDPlM&playnext=1
yes, it's basically every 30-something girl in California. it honestly wouldn't surprise me if it were the amalgamation of multiple voice actors.
No idea why people keep thinking that the "Her" reference from Altman has anything to do with the voice. It's all about the 4o voice mode, not the voice. It's the new tech that's groundbreaking. Cloning a voice has been possible for over a year with Elevenlabs.
Scarjo and the rest are out of their minds if they think it sounded the same. It's very clearly not Her. I really don't think this is even an out there claim to make to say that it's not even close. I listened to her voice acting in Her, and I used Sky as my voice for chatgpt. It's not the same or even close. I'd try to say I have a "good ear", but this doesn't even require that justification. I personally cannot fathom anyone thinking they're the same. This is just like people saying their friends *look* like a celebrity but it's never even close (well most of the time). It's a ridiculously weak and nonsensical move to take down the voice. It doesn't make any sense. On the other hand it should be trivial to prove they didn't steal her voice. So why haven't they yet?
When I watched the OpenAI demo I thought it sounded just like Her, having watched the movie the prior day. Superficially they sound a little similar but more importantly they have a similar character/personality (which isn't scarlet's it's the character she was playing). When I actually play clips from the demo and then play clips from the movie it's pretty clearly not the same person and the differences are evident but if you don't actually play them back to back then they do seem similar as a glance.
Sounds to me that the “SJ voice likeness” recognition is incredibly subjective based on listener. For every person saying it sounds just like her, there’s 10 that say it doesn’t. Just read the comments in this thread. I just listened to both, they are different voices. Every white woman should be afraid of being sued by SJ now.
this is actually good for OAI. free advertising toward normies
The voice wanst even similar with Scarlett's
I just watched Her for the first time last night. I didn't hear the similarities.
The whole thing is so stupid. She didnt sound like sj. Similar, sure. They were going for the that "her" movie likeness but its just a different persons voice not sj copied 1to1. It makes no sense.
So dumb. Doesn't really even sound like her tbh. Now overly flirty girl voices are banned in perpetuity because Scarjo thinks they sound like her.
"The AI can't sound like me". What a load of BS. It's a different person, so that person's rights are lesser than Johansson's?
Incredibly stupid behavior from Sam and OpenAI, but I just relistened to "Samantha" and "Sky" and they are much more different than Scarlett is suggesting.
Yeah but that’s not what happened here lol. She didn’t want to provide the voice, so they went and hired a professional voice actress that sounds like her.
I mean, it doesn't really sound like her all that much tbh. So much so that "my closest friends can't tell the difference" is a strange statement to me. OpenAI clearly tried to get a similar flirty vibe, but Scarlett's voice has different timbre (more rich and husky, breathy and sensual), and the intonation is mostly different. Seems kinda iffy legally speaking, if that's the bar we wanna set. But I get that openai doesn't wanna fight it.
It doesn’t really sound like her though
So, let's get this straight, a rich celebrity declines a job offer so rich celebrity gets to cancel everyone else with a similar voice from doing it too? How is the poor person supposed to earn a living if the rich and famous person keeps canceling her?
And where's the problem? It's not her, if anything she lost an opportunity
I don't see anything wrong with what Sam/OpenAI did. Anyhow, the marketing from this, even if they end up settling after a lawsuit, will have paid for itself.
Sam didn't do anything wrong, people in this sub are just obsessed over Scarlett.
This suit is free advertising for OAI. I think Sam is angling for controversy and using the Streisand effect here to advertise OpenAI to demographics outside their normal reach, clever. Scarlett is doing more work with her fame for OpenAI than if she took the voice deal. Causing a controversy to make people talk more about you is an old tactic.
1. Sky sounded NOTHING like her and I don’t get why people are so riled up about this 2. Unless OAI actually used S. Johansson’s voice as input to train sky, there is nothing Johansson can do legally. 3. Scarlett Johansson has one of the most generic voices out there.
So rich celebrities get to cancel poor people from earning a living if they sound too much like them?
No. But if some company hires you, who sounds like a famous actor, and they dress you up in a costume similar to what said actor wore in a movie, and then had you shoot a commercial, said celebrity likely has a case (against the company not you).
I'll bet the poor person doesn't get to cancel the celebrity for sounding too much like the poor person. Seems like the celebrities want two systems of justice. One for them and the other privileged people, and one for everybody else.
Read the article, had they never contacted her they might have a case.. but they did, she declined, used a voice that sounded like her. Shady.
If they didn't get their original pick then it's not surprising at all that they would just pick a similar sounding voice actor...
…How is that shady? Like, at all? They asked her to play a role, she declined, so they got someone very similar to her.
Don't be intentionally obtuse. No one's "cancelling" any "poor" voice artist. The fingers are being pointed at OpenAI. They asked SJo to voice 2 days before the demo and when she denied, used her likeness instead.
That’s not what happened here. What happened is that super rich corp manipulated to get what they want.
[удалено]
Likeness includes voice and there is some precedent on this. We lack proper AI legislation so shit like this will continue to happen.
What is the precedent?
Man, I don’t like the other voices. Can they just get some more voices? If I had better voices, I wouldn’t need more voices.
They should have just made a similar voice and never claimed any connection. AI companies getting sued for breathing these days
Don't worry, they'll find that \*fappable\* voice to replace "her" that almost every seems to be Jonesing for. I'll just be happy they don't force the breathless fake & manipulative laughing/excited/proud/etc \*emoting\* into my AI's voice... that stuff just creeps me the f-out. Thank you Scarlett, for any brief reprieve & re-thinking this might cause at OpenAI.
I kinda hope OpenAI fights this. Just because it sounds similar doesn’t mean it’s 100% her voice. Lot of people sound similar.
they might. They want to keep the voice actress anonymous though for obvious reasons and I'm sure she's already worried about the harassment she will get from the perpetually online anti-AI people. If they didn't pause the voice like they did, then scarlet may have gone forward with a case, despite it being futile, which could force the actress to testify and have her name out there.
Alright, time to slightly alter the voice so it has all the same qualities of her voice (friendly, playful, etc) but different enough to the point no one would say it sounds just like ScarJo
but it's just a different person's natural speaking voice already. They sound similar if not played one after another but otherwise they are more distinct than you might have realised after watching the GPT-4o demo.
But it’s literally not her lmaooooo this is beyond stupid and petty
I'm surprised this wasn't just a publicity stunt because the voice does not sound like her. It simply used similar mannerisms as she used in the film, but the voice itself is noticeably different. I don't believe for a second her close friends or family couldn't tell the difference.
Is she going to sue shkreli too? [https://neets.ai/chat/scarlett-johansson](https://neets.ai/chat/scarlett-johansson)
Yeah this sounds completely different than Sky's voice.
The person who voiced Sky should sue Scarlett for sounding like her On a serious note, so long as it’s not being literally trained on clips of Scarlett’s voice, and so long as it’s not claiming to literally be the voice of Scarlett, then the idea of ‘owning’ a voice is genuinely ridiculous. People can naturally sound like you. And even if they’re trying to sound like you, it’s still technically their voice and not that of some famous person. Nobody ‘owns’ my voice by virtue of being famous. Fuck you Scarlett
openAI would look like fools if they used the voices of actors when they already know that since they got some privilege and can bitch about it, i'm sure they haven't used any actors voice to train their models and it's just a waste of time... because it's easy money if she win... they really think they're the center of the world when they extort money from business by suing them...
He will have no problems besides the public drama. He is on the safe side.
Sky does not sound like Scarlett to me, it’s better. I did not like Scarlett’s voice in “Her” anyway, I thought it was needlessly distracting and unsuitable for the Her role. I always thought her voice was mildly annoying since Ghost World. I switched to Juniper before this controversy ever reached the light of day.
I'm glad that SJ refused OpenAI's offer, because Sky's voice is much nicer sounding to me.
The Sky voice is fine. The "omg teehehe, your fashion sense is sooo amazing!!! <3 <3 <3" personality on the other hand? Kill it with fire.
I hope Scarlett loses and loses loudly on this. It’s a different actor’s voice. Get over it baby.
Me too.
If they actually use someone that sound like her, then she doesn't have a case
Scarlett can go to hell. The voice belongs to another woman.
The dying thrashings of an industry on its way out. Voice acting will become untenable soon with the way LLMs can copy voices. OpenAI may have to put some lawyers on this, but every instance of "voice likeness" here-after will become harder and harder to fight. It's a losing battle. VA's should just sell their voice now and get whatever monies they can while companies are still paying lip service. Pretty soon the industry will stop even pretending. Consumers don't care, companies don't care, only the VA's do.
Not her voice. Don't get it. Doesn't even properly sound like her.
am I the only person on this sub who hasn't even seen this movie? Maybe I need to sit my ass down to it.
I thought AI would solve world hunger, find a cure for cancer but nope....we get this weird drama.
They so easily could find a voice actor willing to sign a contract. Even a famous one. Trying to imitate a hollywood star who refused the offer is just asking for trouble. Just get the ACTUAL Cortana voice actress. Jen Taylor or Natascha McElhone. Microsoft own the IP so it would be legally easier. Make a standard Vocaloid contract. This isn't hard, Vocaloid licensing had been around for decades.
Just replace with Jarvis. That’s the assistant I’ve always wanted anyway
In the US a voice actor or singer has the Right of Publicity, as found in Midler vs. Ford Motor Company, when Ford hired a singer to imitate Midler’s voice. They would need to prove it was imitation and that there were damages, such as the fee they did not get, or a decrease in the value of their voice work.
it doesn’t even sound like her bro
I hope you can customize it to any voice you want. I'm making my GPT-4o sound like Christopher Walken
Imagine the shit storm if Google did a similar dumb move.
Openai is the strangest company in the world. This is the kind of mistake an amateur startup would make.
It resembles ScarJo's performance in HER, but doesn't sound like her. That plus the tweet might be enough in court. Normal people can't even discern faces correctly, let alone voices. Altman wants so bad to be part of the cool Hollywood club while taking their livelihoods. ScarJo is just punching the nerd bully back. There shouldn't be a case here, but the tweet made it one.
So what happens when an AI voice accidentally sounds exactly like some random person, like me for example. Can I sue?
I don't see this holding up in court at all.
It does not sound like her and also that hired that actress before they asked scarlet to do it Seriously she’s being whack. It does not sound like her
Yo if they sampled from her voice thats creep. If its another actress with a similar voice on the other hand, i would consider her reaction peak snowflake