Scarlett Johansson Black Widow (screenshot)
Scarlett Johansson and Sam Altman have been at war, so to speak, over the release of the new Sky feature by his OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI service. Sky, a conversational AI with 100 unique personalities, was unveiled last week with a voice that sounds just like Johansson’s and the two-time Oscar nominee was not happy about it and now OpenAI said it will suspend the use of the voice.
“We’ve heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky,” said OpenAI in a statement. “We are working to pause the use of Sky while we address them.”
“We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson. Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky’s voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better,” Sam Altman himself wrote in a statement.
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You might have seen the 2013 movie “Her” in which Scarlett Johansson played just such an AI voice. In that movie her voice was so real that her user, played by Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix, falls in love with the AI assistant.
That was obviously the inspiration for Open AI’s creating a voice similar to Scarlett Johansson’s for ChatGPT’s Sky.
Scarlett Johansson was not convinced by OpenAI’s claim that the use of a voice similar to her own was not deliberate.
“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 statement. “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.”
In fact, the actress said the company even approached her about hiring Johannsson for to be the voice, but she said that, “After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer”
Scarlett Johansson hopes to see new laws that would prevent the use of people’s voices in this way.
“I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected,” she said.
Scarlett Johansson is one of the most successful actresses of all time. She is the world’s highest-paid actress in 2018 and 2019, and her films have grossed over $15.4 billion worldwide, making her the highest-grossing box office female star of all time.
She is also a critically acclaimed actress, having received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, a Tony Award, and nominations for two Academy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards.
