Scarlett Johansson is speaking out against OpenAI after the company claimed in a blog post yesterday that its ChatGPT voice Sky wasn’t “an imitation” of the Her actress.”Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system,” Scarlett Johansson said in a statement provided to PCMag. “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. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people.”After much consideration and for personal reasons, I 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 I 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 OpenAI, setting out what they had done and asking them to detail the exact process by which they created the “Sky” voice. Consequently, OpenAI 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.”Johansson’s statement comes nearly eight months after OpenAI first released its voice feature for ChatGPT, where Android and iOS mobile users can chat with one of five different ChatGPT voices. But last week, OpenAI showed off its new ChatGPT-4o model with a “flirty” voice that sounds like Johansson. That same day, Altman made the “Her” tweet.Over the weekend, Johansson’s husband Colin Jost made a joke on Saturday Night Live about the striking similarities between Johansson’s voice and ChatGPT’s, stating that it was “inspired” by her AI character in the 2013 movie Her. At time of writing, Sky is still available on ChatGPT’s iOS mobile app.
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Considering Hollywood actors went on strike for months last year in large part due to concerns over AI stealing their voices or jobs without their consent, OpenAI now has some damage control to do if it plans to take its tech, like Sora, to the big screen.
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