By Dawn Chmielewski and Anna Tong | REUTERS
Scarlett Johansson on Monday accused OpenAI of creating a voice for the ChatGPT system that sounded “eerily similar” to the actress after she declined to voice the chatbot herself.
Johansson made the comments in a statement released hours after the artificial intelligence company said it was taking down the voice, called ‘Sky.’
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement emailed to Reuters on Monday that Sky’s voice was not an imitation of Johansson, but belonged to a different professional actress.
“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.”
Johansson in the statement said Altman had approached her last September and offered to hire her to voice a ChatGPT voice — an offer she declined.
“Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named ‘Sky’ sounded like me,” she said.
“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 added that Altman had “insinuated that the similarity was intentional” by tweeting a reference to “her,” the 2013 movie about a man who develops a relationship with an AI assistant voiced by the actress.
“When we crossed the uncanny valley in generative AI, we opened a canyon of privacy concerns. Even ordinary people without the fame of Scarlett Johansson are worried about having their likeness taken and used without their permission. There are some existing laws that can protect against particular misuses of deepfake likenesses—including name, image, and likeness (“NIL”) rights, libel, and even copyright laws—but they are imperfect. Johansson is right that we need legislation to better enable all individuals to control their personal identities.”
– Paul Coble, Rose Law Group Intellectual Property & Artificial Intelligence Department Chair
