Famous actress accuses ChatGPT of "stealing" her voice

Artificial Intelligence creates a lot of controversy, beyond the obvious good things it can do. American actress Scarlett Johansson declared herself "shocked" and "enraged" by the "strange" similarity between a ChatGPT voice and her own. OpenAI has said it will "pause" the use of one of ChatGPT's voices after it drew comparisons to that of a Hollywood actress. Some users have commented on a similarity between Johansson's voice and one of the app's voice options called Sky, following an update that makes the ChatGPT chatbot more conversational, according to some commenters. Johansson provided her voice for the AI interface in the 2013 film Her, set in the near future, in which the main character played by Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with the virtual assistant Samantha. "We are aware of questions about how we chose voices in ChatGPT, particularly Sky's," OpenAI said in a post on X, adding: "We are pausing use of Sky while we resolve them." . In a statement following the post, Johansson said that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman approached her in September asking if she would be willing to lend her voice to the system, arguing that in his opinion, this this would be "comforting for people" who do not feel at ease in the presence of this technology. "He told me that he felt that by lending my voice to this system, I could create a bridge between tech companies and creators, and that it would help consumers feel comfortable about the seismic shift in terms of people and AI", said the actress. "After much consideration and for personal reasons, (I) declined the offer," Scarlett Johansson said. "Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noticed how much the newest system called "Sky' looked like me. When I heard the demo released, I was shocked, enraged and couldn't I came to believe that Mr. Altman used a voice so strangely similar to mine that even my closest friends and the media couldn't tell the difference," the actress said. Johansson said that OpenAI "reluctantly" accepted the withdrawal of the Sky voice after she turned to lawyers who demanded an account from Sam Altman about the process by which the company created the voice. In a blog post published alongside its message on social network X, the company said: "We believe that AI voices should not deliberately imitate a celebrity's distinctive voice - Sky's voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson, but belongs to another professional actress who uses her own natural voice. To protect their right to privacy, we cannot reveal the names of our voices." The company's post added that each of the voices used by ChatGPT "was carefully selected through an extensive process that spanned five months and involved professional actors, talent agencies, casting directors and industry advisors ". The company said it spoke with each shortlisted actor about the capabilities and limitations of the technology, as well as its risks, as well as addressing the safeguards the company has implemented before making a decision on the five voices selected for use in the app. . OpenAI last week presented its new AI model, called GPT-4o, with the update focusing on a more conversational language, with answers provided by voices closer to the human voice.