Scarlett Johansson left 'angered' by chatbot imitation
Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson has said she was left "shocked" and "angered" after OpenAI launched a chatbot with an "eerily similar" voice to her own. The actress said she had previously turned down an approach by the company to voice its new chatbot, which reads text aloud to users. When the new model debuted last week, commentators were quick to draw comparisons between the chatbot's "Sky" voice and Johansson's in the 2013 film Her.
Accusations and Denials
OpenAI said on Monday that it would remove the voice, but insisted that it was not meant to be an "imitation" of the star. However, Johansson accused the company, and its founder Sam Altman, of deliberately copying her voice, in a statement seen by the BBC on Monday evening. "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," she wrote.
Background and Context
Set in the near future, 2013 film Her sees Joaquin Phoenix fall in love with his device's operating system, which is voiced by Ms. Johansson. The actress, who has been nominated for two Academy Awards, said she had been initially approached by Mr. Altman about voicing the new chatbot in September. "[Mr Altman] 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," Johansson wrote.
Legal Actions and Responses
But she eventually rejected the offer for personal reasons, she said. Two days before the Sky chatbot was released, she added, Mr. Altman contacted her agent, urging Johansson to reconsider her initial refusal to co-operate with the company. Adding that she had been forced to hire lawyers, the actress said she had sent two legal letters to the company, to establish how the voice had been made. In a statement shared with the BBC by OpenAI, Mr. Altman denied that the company had sought to imitate Johansson's voice.
"The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson's, and it was never intended to resemble hers," he wrote. "We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson. 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." OpenAI has been battling various legal challenges to how it uses copyrighted information available online.
Conclusion
In December, the New York Times said it planned to launch a lawsuit against the corporation over allegations that it had used "millions" of articles published by the media organization to train its ChatGPT AI model. The technology will help staff resolve issues for pilots and crews more quickly, easyJet says. The three-year skills strategy is approved despite concerns it may be overtaken by technology. The ICO wants to know the safeguards around Recall, which can take screengrabs of your screen every few seconds.
Officials in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu are using AI to monitor elephant movement on rail tracks. Data center electricity demand is forecast to double in four years, putting energy grids under pressure. Ms. Johansson took part in last year's industrial action, which was partly about how studios would use AI to imitate actors' faces and voices. The deal struck with studios included reassurances that these would not be used without consent from actors.
"To use someone’s voice without permission feels particularly invasive at a time when distrust of AI and concern over its potential harms are rampant," said Dan Stein, head of AI voice licensing company Voice-Swap. "Whether OpenAI trained their new Sky voice using audio from Scarlett Johansson or a sound-a-like, the fact remains that she refused permission and her identity was exploited regardless. It sets a dangerous precedent for copyright and consent if the most prominent company in the field behaves in this way."
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