OpenAI accused of plagiarizing actress Scarlett Johansson’s voice for GPT-4o
Artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI released a new AI model GPT-4o last week, which is claimed to be able to make conversations between users and the ChatGPT chatbot more lively.
However, recently, Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson accused one of the synthetic voices created by OpenAI on GPT-4o called ” Sky ” of using and imitating her voice without permission.
In fact, Sky’s synthetic voice has been available on ChatGPT since September 2023. However, at the GPT-4o demonstration held last week, his voice was updated and is said to be more similar to Johansson.
Johansson apparently didn’t like the similarity between Sky’s voice on the GPT-4o and his own voice.
When I heard the demo release, I was shocked, angry, and couldn’t believe that Mr. “Altman ( Sam Altman , CEO of ChatGPT) will try to create a voice (Sky) that is so similar to mine, that even my closest friends and media outlets can’t tell the difference,” said Johansson.
Johansson then hired a lawyer who wrote two letters to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The letters describe Johansson’s request that OpenAI detail the process of creating a “Sky” sound similar to her own.
The CEO of OpenAI once asked Scarlett Johansson to be the voice of ChatGPT
In a statement shared with NPR correspondent Bobby Allyn, Johansson claimed that in September 2023 Sam Altman asked him to be a voice actor on ChatGPT. However, due to personal reasons, he refused the offer.
Johansson also added that two days before the release of the ChatGPT 4.0 demo, Sam Altman contacted his agent and asked him to reconsider the offer to become a voice actor on ChatGPT.
“Before we could establish a partnership, the system had already been rolled out.” Johansson said.
Sam Altman is even said to have hinted that the similarity in Sky’s voice was intentional, via a tweet with the single word “Her” on his personal X (formerly Twitter) social media account which was uploaded on May 14, or one day after the launch of GPT-4o.
Her here refers to the title of a science fiction film which tells the story of a man, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who falls in love with a virtual assistant named Samantha, whose voice is voiced by Scarlett Johansson.
“In an era where we are fighting against deepfakes and protecting what resembles us, our identities and our work, I believe it is important to gain absolute clarity on this question.” Johanssen said in his statement.
So that similar problems do not happen again, Johansson also looks forward to a transparent resolution and the legalization of appropriate laws to guarantee the protection of individual rights.
OpenAI’s response to Sky whose voice is similar to Johansson
In response, OpenAI on its website explained that Sky’s voice was not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson’s voice. Additionally, OpenAI added that the voice actor voicing Sky had been hired before they contacted the actress.
“Sky’s voice is not Scarlett Johansson’s voice, and it was never intended to resemble hers. We selected the actor behind Sky’s voice before we contacted Ms. Johansson.” said Sam Altman, in a statement.
Joanne Jang, OpenAI’s head of behavioral modeling, told TheVerge as compiled by KompasTekno , Rarbu (22/5/2024), that they were communicating with Scarlett Johansson’s representatives regarding Sky’s voice.
Out of respect for Scarlett Johansson, OpenAI confirmed that it has now temporarily stopped using Sky’s synthetic voice. “We apologize to Ms. Johansson because we didn’t communicate well.” Sam Altman added.
SOURCE : CNBC INDONESIA
