A hot potato: It was pretty obvious that the ChatGPT voice named Sky was meant to sound like Scarlett Johansson, the actress who voices AI virtual assistant Samantha in the movie Her. The company even approached Johansson to voice its new system, but she declined. Now, OpenAI has removed the flirty female voice after Johansson revealed her lawyers had contacted the firm.
OpenAI introduced its new GPT-4o model earlier this month. In addition to being "smarter" than its predecessor, it also features a very realistic voice assistant that speaks so quickly that the conversations feel like you're talking to a human.
As you can hear in the video below, the Sky voice sounds a lot like Scarlett Johansson. OpenAI boss Sam Altman, who previously said Her is his favorite movie, pretty much confirmed this was the aim when he tweeted "her" after his company announced GPT-4o.
OpenAI later said that Sky's voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice. It added that hundreds of voice-acting submissions were reviewed over a period of five months last year.
Johansson has now revealed that she was approached by OpenAI nine months ago to voice its latest ChatGPT update, but refused for "personal reasons." When she heard Sky, Johansson said she was "shocked" and "angered," noting that it "sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference."
her
– Sam Altman (@sama) May 13, 2024
Johansson also highlighted how generative AI has contributed to the rise of disinformation and the theft of people's likeness without their consent. "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," she said.
Johansson added that when Altman approached her, he said, "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. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people."
Altman contacted Johansson's agent just two days before Sky was released, asking the actress to reconsider her decision. In a statement shared to NPR, Johansson said she has now been "forced to hire legal counsel" and sent two letters to OpenAI inquiring how the Sky voice was made.
In a statement shared with multiple publications, Altman reiterated that the voice of Sky was never intended to resemble Johansson's. He added that Sky's voice actor was cast before any outreach to the Black Widow star. However, "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."
OpenAI removes Scarlett Johansson-like voice from ChatGPT after actress hires legal counsel
