OpenAI's Flirty New GPT-4o Is Giving Some People the Ick
ChatGPT has found its voice — but not everyone appears to like it. On Monday, OpenAI debuted a new AI model named GPT-4o, which uses native audio inputs and outputs. When integrated into ChatGPT, users can have human-like conversations with the bot, speaking to it and showing it things. The result is like having a futuristic AI best friend — or girlfriend — in your pocket. The update quickly sparked parallels to Spike Jonze's 2013 film "Her," which portrays a writer, played by Joaquin Phoenix, falling in love with an artificial-intelligence system, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Some have even said the chatbot's new voice sounds like Johansson's.
Reactions and Criticism
Sam Altman appeared to weigh in on the social-media chatter in an X post, possibly citing the film as an inspiration for ChatGPT's new voice. Some users, however, have already been complaining that the voice is overly sexualized and flirty. One X user quipped: "Does anyone else feel that ChatGPT is trying a little too hard to be flirty?"
Unsurprisingly, Elon Musk led some of the criticism, saying the demo made him "cringe" and commenting on a few posts about the bot's sexual tone. The billionaire does have personal beef with OpenAI and its CEO, but he was far from the only one to be weirded out by ChatGPT's new voice.
"I imagine the least interesting use of GPT-4o is emulating an uncomfortably flirtatious, mildly condescending woman who you have to actively interrupt if you want to get a word in edgeways," the designer Maggie Appleton said on X. Another X user said the bot's voice resembled a "female character as written by men," calling it a "mega ick."
Several others, including the New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose, urged AI bosses to watch all of Jonze's film, which (spoiler alert) does not have a happy ending. Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, has a global deal to allow OpenAI to train its models on its media brands' reporting.
