Scarlett Johansson Claims OpenAI Mimicked Her Voice for ChatGPT After She Declined Their Offer
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman refuted Johansson’s claims, stating that the voice was never “intended to resemble hers.”
Scarlett Johansson is accusing OpenAI of mimicking her voice for Sky, the ChatGPT voice model, after she declined their offer to bring the chatbot to life.
In a detailed statement, the actress alleged that she was approached by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last September to be the voice of ChatGPT 4.0, but eventually rejected the opportunity. “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,” Johansson stated. “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.”
She continued, “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.” The actress added that she “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,” adding that the company then “reluctantly agreed to take down the ‘Sky’ voice.”
In Altman’s response provided to The Verge, he clarified that the voice of Sky is not the actress’ nor was it ever “intended to resemble hers.” He claims that OpenAI hired the voice actor of Sky (whose name was not revealed supposedly due to privacy concerns) before reaching out to Johansson, adding, “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.” Joanne Jang, OpenAI’s model behavior lead, also stated that the company is now “in conversations” with the actress’ team.
Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI situation. Wow: pic.twitter.com/8ibMeLfqP8
— Bobby Allyn (@BobbyAllyn) May 20, 2024
