Scarlett Johansson rejected OpenAI using her voice and the firm looked for a similar one

Johansson stressed that she rejected Altman’s offer for personal reasons, but upon detecting that the voice was “eerily similar” to hers, she was surprised, angry and incredulous, even at the fact that the executive used the word Her to promote his system. after the presentation.

He even noted that a couple of days before the release of GPT-4o, Altman’s team contacted his agent again and asked him to reconsider his decision; However, before they could establish communication with it, the system had already been shown to the public.

Johansson asks to explain how the voice was made

Faced with this situation, the actress hired legal counsel and sent a couple of letters asking them to detail “the exact process by which they created Sky’s voice” and as a consequence OpenAI agreed to eliminate the chatbot’s voice.

According to the company, Sky – the name given to the voice – does not imitate the Hollywood actress. In fact, she “belongs to a different professional actress who uses her own natural voice,” according to the statement.

Likewise, Altman told The Verge that Sky’s voice is not Johansson’s and “was never intended to be like hers.” He pointed out that the voice actress was chosen before contacting Johansson and out of respect for her they decided to remove Sky from her products.

The company also highlighted that its technology was developed from real voices so that ChatGPT would be more natural when interacting with people. Even last year, a call was launched where more than 400 voice actors participated.

“In a time when we are all dealing with deepfakes and the protection of our own image, our work, our identities, I think these are questions that deserve absolute clarity. I look forward to a resolution in a transparent manner and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected,” Johansson concluded.