Photo: Warner Bros
Actress Scarlett Johansson is locked in a dispute with OpenAI, the company behind the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT. Johansson claims OpenAI used a voice in their system that sounds eerily similar to hers, despite her declining a request to be the official voice.
According to Johansson, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman contacted her in September 2023 to voice ChatGPT 4.0. She refused but says Altman persisted even days before the public demo.
OpenAI has since removed the voice in question, dubbed "Sky," citing concerns about how they chose voices for ChatGPT. The company denies deliberately mimicking Johansson, stating Sky's voice belongs to a different actress. However, Johansson remains unsatisfied and has hired legal counsel. She seeks transparency from OpenAI regarding how they created Sky's voice.
This incident highlights the growing ethical concerns surrounding artificial intelligence development, particularly regarding the use of celebrity voices and likenesses.
A representative for Johansson sent her statement to The Verge, which you can see in full below:
“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 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.”