At first, they denied it—“OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati said the company did not pattern any ChatGPT voices on Johansson’s sultry computer voice in the movie,” but Altman and other OpenAI guys had let the cat out the bag on Twitter
They’re not just deliberately using her voice; they’re deliberately lying about it and bragging about what really happened in public. They’ll pay some nuisance settlement that’s a small fraction of their profit.
That’s how they treat an a list actress. Imagine how they treat everyone else. You don’t get a settlement. You just get fucked.
You see this in action anytime people go “no no you just don’t understand how this works” as a way of sidestepping the overall issue. They try to bury you in the minutiae of it, and what’s “technically” possible without acknowledging that A) what’s possible will increase over time and B) the issue is not technology, it’s the intention of it and the motivations of the people behind it.
It’s like trying to deconstruct the concept of a gun, talking about all its potential mechanical malfunctions, its capacity limits, the fact you have to aim it, and so on, all as a way of trying to downplay the danger of it being pointed directly at you.
According to her statement, they were still trying to strike a deal with her within days of the release.
I can’t imagine anything more shady than trying to strike a deal with someone for their likeness, all the while preparing to use it anyway and later denying it had anything to do with them
She is going to take them to the cleaners, and Altman and his circlejerk club will deserve every single cent of the damages they’re forced to pay. I genuinely hope she makes it an incredibly messy and eye wateringly expensive legal process for them. I’m not a ScarJo fanboy by any means, but fuck OpenAI for thinking they can get away with something so absurdly blatant and obviously unethical.
They “let the cat out of the bag” by referencing the movie “Her” if I understand correctly. Not really an admition of guilt like the article makes it seem.
They also clearly state on their website that they used an other voice actor. If you actually compare both voices, they aren’t the same just similar. They probably went with someone that sounds like her on purpose specifically because of the movie but that’s fine really.
This article is emotional and manipulative. I don’t think scar jo deserves to own the whole spectrum her voice belongs to just because she voiced an AI in one movie. This is how you end up with corporations owning all voices like they tried with music.
No matter how similar the voice is to Scarlett Johansson’s, it would still sound fundamentally different. But there are tricks that you can use to alter the pitch and range of a voice to make it sound more like a specific person and that’s probably what they did.
But Johansson’s public statement describes how they tried to shmooze her: they approached her last fall and were given the FO, contacted her agent two days before launch to ask for reconsideration, launched it before they got a response, then yanked it when her lawyers asked them how they made the voice.
Which is still not an admission of guilt, but seems very shady at the very least, if it’s actually what happened.
Not really an admition of guilt like the article makes it seem.
You don’t need an admission of guilt to lose in court. The fact that they pursued her permission up until 2 days before the release, even after being assured the client did not wish for them to utilize her voice, is pretty damning.
I don’t think scar jo deserves to own the whole spectrum her voice belongs to just because she voiced an AI in one movie.
What’s the difference between this and an AI releasing a Taylor Swift album? Does Taylor Swift deserve to own a whole spectrum of voice?
Voice acting is still an art, and artists deserve to be paid for their contributions. If she has performed an awfully in Her, would they still want to mimic her voice? If Her hadn’t been made, would they have come up with the voice and personality out of the blue?
No, because it’s art, and AI is just an advanced copying machine. Open AI is just the newest attempt to leverage artists and workers from their group bargaining power. It’s the scab of the future, but with more carbon emissions.
You don’t need an admission of guilt to lose in court.
Currently even if they used voice clips to train a model on her voice it wouldn’t be illegal. That isn’t currently the case, since they say they used an other actress that sounds like her anyways.
Does Taylor Swift deserve to own a whole spectrum of voice?
No, just like she doesn’t deserve to own the four chord progressions that make up her songs. If she did, she could literally sue half of all pop music.
This is why none of this is copyrightable. There are too many people that have similar voices and too many songs that use similar chord progressions.
Your fantasy where this empowers small time artists is just that, a fantasy. If we push and they come out with new laws that make these things copyrightable, you just end up with corporations owning all of it.
Currently even if they used voice clips to train a model on her voice it wouldn’t be illegal.
I think that’s currently the point of contention…
That isn’t currently the case, since they say they used an other actress that sounds like her anyways.
That’s what they’re claiming, but it’s not like open AI doesn’t have a pretty well documented history of lying.
No! Just like she doesn’t deserve to own the four chord progressions that make up her songs.
There’s a difference between common chord progressions and plagiarizing someone’s voice and performance. You are the only person conflating the two.
This is why none of this is copyrightable. There are two many people that have similar voices
I think their intent is pretty clear. They didn’t want a similar voice, they wanted her voice. After failing at getting her consent, they proceeded anyways.
and too many songs that use similar chord progressions.
There’s actual precedent on how similar songs can be to each other without giving credit. Simple chord progressions aren’t copyrightable, but how those chord progressions are performed are.
Your fantasy where this empowers small time artists is just that, a fantasy.
Lol, if they are able to plagiarize art from millionaires, what’s the chance there’s going to be any kind of protections for small artist?
If we push and they come out with new laws that make these things copyrightable, you just end up with corporations owning all of it.
We don’t have to come out with laws banning chord progressions, that’s just a strawman argument you erected yourself. We just need to apply the laws we currently have to AI companies. If Sony had tried to get her to dress like black widow and do a commercial and she refused. And if they then proceeded to hire an actress who looked like her, dressed the actress in a black skin tight suit, and gave her a red wig… We’d be dealing with a hefty lawsuit, even if they claimed it wasn’t supposed to be SJ.
If you read another article that has more information to it, instead of just this opinion piece, it looks like they hired and paid a voice actress and that it is her natural voice (supposedly).
Which begs the question: Can a voice actor be denied work or denied the ability to have their voice used, if they sound similar to someone else who is more famous?
This kind of reminds me of Crispin Glover, from Back to the Future. He tried to negotiate a higher pay for the second movie, so the producers hired a different actor to play the role, but deliberately made the actor up to look like Glover. In response, Glover sued the producers and won. It set a critical precedent for Hollywood, about using someone’s likeness without consent.
The article mentions they reached out to her two days before the launch - if she had said ‘OK,’ there’s no way they could have even recorded what they needed from her, let alone trained the model in time for the presentation. So they must have had a Scarlett Johansson voice ready to go. Other than training the model on movies (really not ideal for a high quality voice model), how would they have gotten the recordings they needed?
If they hired a “random” voice actress, they might not run into issues. But if at any point they had a job listing, a discussion with a talent manager, or anything else where they mentioned wanting a “Scarlett Johansson sound-alike,” they might have dug themselves a nice hole here.
Specifically regarding your question about hiring a voice actor that sounds like someone else - this is commonly done to replace people for cartoons. I don’t think it’s an issue if you are playing a character. But if you deliberately impersonate a person, there might be some trouble.
Well one of the other articles I’ve read said they listened to and sampled 400 voice actors and selected 5 of them to have flown out to do all the voice work. The voice in the product also doesn’t sound that much like Scar Jo. Just similar. She never had a very unique voice.
I think it is less a question of whether the voice sounds like Scarlett Johansson, as that is subjective and arbitrary (e.g. assume you could objectively measure the similarity, what’s the acceptable cut off - 80%? 90%?). The same is true for the uniqueness of her voice.
I think the real question will come down to intention. They clearly wanted her voice. Did they intentionally attempt to replicate it when they couldn’t have the real thing? If so, there is precedent that would suggest they could be in a little trouble here, e.g.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-story.html
The voice they’re using isn’t a replicated one, though. It’s a paid voice actress and it is supposed to be her natural voice. It also does sound a bit different than scar jo.
That won’t be a copyright issue, but if you’re deliberately making it indistinguishable from somebody else it can be a publicity rights issue by (false) implicit support from the one impersonated.
Intent probably matters a lot here. The actor they hired did not coincidentally have a similar voice. They were hired because they had a similar voice, and the fact that Scarlett Johansson was approached to start with only underscores this.
They were specifically looking for her likeness, for commercial reasons. And when it was denied, they purposely imitated it. That doesn’t feel right to me. In the end, they’re still trying to use her likeness without permission.
That’s different than if they liked a VA’s voice and hired them. The voice could be similar, but there was no ill intent nor attempting to copy a likeness. I think they would’ve been fine if they were even shooting for something like her voice. Where OpenAI fucked up is approaching Johansson to start with, because it shows they didn’t want something like her voice or the VA coincidentally sounded similar – they purposely wanted her likeness, and went behind her back to do it once she denied them.
That‘s the type of cockiness you‘d expect from scoundrels who just committed the biggest heist in history and got away with it. I‘m not surprised in the slightest.
They’re not just deliberately using her voice; they’re deliberately lying about it and bragging about what really happened in public. They’ll pay some nuisance settlement that’s a small fraction of their profit.
That’s how they treat an a list actress. Imagine how they treat everyone else. You don’t get a settlement. You just get fucked.
No, you don’t understand, these guys are tech bros, they’re special, for reasons.
From the article:
And that sums up techbros in one sentence.
You see this in action anytime people go “no no you just don’t understand how this works” as a way of sidestepping the overall issue. They try to bury you in the minutiae of it, and what’s “technically” possible without acknowledging that A) what’s possible will increase over time and B) the issue is not technology, it’s the intention of it and the motivations of the people behind it.
It’s like trying to deconstruct the concept of a gun, talking about all its potential mechanical malfunctions, its capacity limits, the fact you have to aim it, and so on, all as a way of trying to downplay the danger of it being pointed directly at you.
Damn you really nailed it. This is something that has bothered me a lot but I’ve never found a good way to explain it. Your analogy is perfect.
According to her statement, they were still trying to strike a deal with her within days of the release.
I can’t imagine anything more shady than trying to strike a deal with someone for their likeness, all the while preparing to use it anyway and later denying it had anything to do with them
She is going to take them to the cleaners, and Altman and his circlejerk club will deserve every single cent of the damages they’re forced to pay. I genuinely hope she makes it an incredibly messy and eye wateringly expensive legal process for them. I’m not a ScarJo fanboy by any means, but fuck OpenAI for thinking they can get away with something so absurdly blatant and obviously unethical.
They “let the cat out of the bag” by referencing the movie “Her” if I understand correctly. Not really an admition of guilt like the article makes it seem.
They also clearly state on their website that they used an other voice actor. If you actually compare both voices, they aren’t the same just similar. They probably went with someone that sounds like her on purpose specifically because of the movie but that’s fine really.
This article is emotional and manipulative. I don’t think scar jo deserves to own the whole spectrum her voice belongs to just because she voiced an AI in one movie. This is how you end up with corporations owning all voices like they tried with music.
I wouldn’t ever want someone to be able to own a tone/sound of voice. I’m with you there.
But it kinda sounds like they’re trying to straight-up imitate her. Like they want people to hear this ai and think it’s voiced by johanssen herself.
I don’t know if that’s true, or if it even makes a difference legally, it’s just the impression I’m getting.
I’m not knowledgeable about any of this; any correction is welcome, lol.
No matter how similar the voice is to Scarlett Johansson’s, it would still sound fundamentally different. But there are tricks that you can use to alter the pitch and range of a voice to make it sound more like a specific person and that’s probably what they did.
There’s also this part:
Which is still not an admission of guilt, but seems very shady at the very least, if it’s actually what happened.
You don’t need an admission of guilt to lose in court. The fact that they pursued her permission up until 2 days before the release, even after being assured the client did not wish for them to utilize her voice, is pretty damning.
What’s the difference between this and an AI releasing a Taylor Swift album? Does Taylor Swift deserve to own a whole spectrum of voice?
Voice acting is still an art, and artists deserve to be paid for their contributions. If she has performed an awfully in Her, would they still want to mimic her voice? If Her hadn’t been made, would they have come up with the voice and personality out of the blue?
No, because it’s art, and AI is just an advanced copying machine. Open AI is just the newest attempt to leverage artists and workers from their group bargaining power. It’s the scab of the future, but with more carbon emissions.
Currently even if they used voice clips to train a model on her voice it wouldn’t be illegal. That isn’t currently the case, since they say they used an other actress that sounds like her anyways.
No, just like she doesn’t deserve to own the four chord progressions that make up her songs. If she did, she could literally sue half of all pop music.
This is why none of this is copyrightable. There are too many people that have similar voices and too many songs that use similar chord progressions.
Your fantasy where this empowers small time artists is just that, a fantasy. If we push and they come out with new laws that make these things copyrightable, you just end up with corporations owning all of it.
I think that’s currently the point of contention…
That’s what they’re claiming, but it’s not like open AI doesn’t have a pretty well documented history of lying.
There’s a difference between common chord progressions and plagiarizing someone’s voice and performance. You are the only person conflating the two.
I think their intent is pretty clear. They didn’t want a similar voice, they wanted her voice. After failing at getting her consent, they proceeded anyways.
There’s actual precedent on how similar songs can be to each other without giving credit. Simple chord progressions aren’t copyrightable, but how those chord progressions are performed are.
Lol, if they are able to plagiarize art from millionaires, what’s the chance there’s going to be any kind of protections for small artist?
We don’t have to come out with laws banning chord progressions, that’s just a strawman argument you erected yourself. We just need to apply the laws we currently have to AI companies. If Sony had tried to get her to dress like black widow and do a commercial and she refused. And if they then proceeded to hire an actress who looked like her, dressed the actress in a black skin tight suit, and gave her a red wig… We’d be dealing with a hefty lawsuit, even if they claimed it wasn’t supposed to be SJ.
If you read another article that has more information to it, instead of just this opinion piece, it looks like they hired and paid a voice actress and that it is her natural voice (supposedly).
Which begs the question: Can a voice actor be denied work or denied the ability to have their voice used, if they sound similar to someone else who is more famous?
This kind of reminds me of Crispin Glover, from Back to the Future. He tried to negotiate a higher pay for the second movie, so the producers hired a different actor to play the role, but deliberately made the actor up to look like Glover. In response, Glover sued the producers and won. It set a critical precedent for Hollywood, about using someone’s likeness without consent.
The article mentions they reached out to her two days before the launch - if she had said ‘OK,’ there’s no way they could have even recorded what they needed from her, let alone trained the model in time for the presentation. So they must have had a Scarlett Johansson voice ready to go. Other than training the model on movies (really not ideal for a high quality voice model), how would they have gotten the recordings they needed?
If they hired a “random” voice actress, they might not run into issues. But if at any point they had a job listing, a discussion with a talent manager, or anything else where they mentioned wanting a “Scarlett Johansson sound-alike,” they might have dug themselves a nice hole here.
Specifically regarding your question about hiring a voice actor that sounds like someone else - this is commonly done to replace people for cartoons. I don’t think it’s an issue if you are playing a character. But if you deliberately impersonate a person, there might be some trouble.
Well one of the other articles I’ve read said they listened to and sampled 400 voice actors and selected 5 of them to have flown out to do all the voice work. The voice in the product also doesn’t sound that much like Scar Jo. Just similar. She never had a very unique voice.
I think it is less a question of whether the voice sounds like Scarlett Johansson, as that is subjective and arbitrary (e.g. assume you could objectively measure the similarity, what’s the acceptable cut off - 80%? 90%?). The same is true for the uniqueness of her voice.
I think the real question will come down to intention. They clearly wanted her voice. Did they intentionally attempt to replicate it when they couldn’t have the real thing? If so, there is precedent that would suggest they could be in a little trouble here, e.g. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-story.html
The voice they’re using isn’t a replicated one, though. It’s a paid voice actress and it is supposed to be her natural voice. It also does sound a bit different than scar jo.
That won’t be a copyright issue, but if you’re deliberately making it indistinguishable from somebody else it can be a publicity rights issue by (false) implicit support from the one impersonated.
Intent probably matters a lot here. The actor they hired did not coincidentally have a similar voice. They were hired because they had a similar voice, and the fact that Scarlett Johansson was approached to start with only underscores this.
They were specifically looking for her likeness, for commercial reasons. And when it was denied, they purposely imitated it. That doesn’t feel right to me. In the end, they’re still trying to use her likeness without permission.
That’s different than if they liked a VA’s voice and hired them. The voice could be similar, but there was no ill intent nor attempting to copy a likeness. I think they would’ve been fine if they were even shooting for something like her voice. Where OpenAI fucked up is approaching Johansson to start with, because it shows they didn’t want something like her voice or the VA coincidentally sounded similar – they purposely wanted her likeness, and went behind her back to do it once she denied them.
Then what about impersonators for hire? Or like a Motley Cru cover band?
Nice try chatgpt but we know it’s tou.
That‘s the type of cockiness you‘d expect from scoundrels who just committed the biggest heist in history and got away with it. I‘m not surprised in the slightest.
These are the same dudes who have LSD and mushroom parties with their female coworkers and then pressure them into sex.
Source? Sounds about right for techbro AI douches, curious though
Orgies and psychedelics use is super common in their own rite, but it’s even more common in high tech silicone valley circles:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40401043
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/machine-learning-researcher-links-openai-185652824.html