Scarlett Johannson has expressed “anger” over OpenAI. She claims that the company requested she represent the voice of ChatGPT, but upon her refusal, they went ahead and made a voice that sounded just like her, specifically in the vein of the 2013 film featuring herself and Joaquin Phoenix.
In a statement with NPR, Johannson is now seeking “legal counsel”, sending multiple letters to OpenAI inquiring the way in which the soundalike voice for ChatGPT known as Sky was made.
“Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system,” Johansson wrote. She went on to claim that Altman contacted her agent just two days before the company demoed the voice asking for her to reconsider.
Altman has expressed praise for Johannson as an actress, especially for her performance in Her, where she voices an AI assistant. After the ChatGPT event that took place last week, he made a post of the word “her” on X/Twitter about the voice demo the company released, featuring an assistant sounding just like Johannson.
OpenAI made a subsequent announcement stating it would be pulling the voice of Sky to address questions regarding how the company chooses its voices for ChatGPT.
Johannson said she was “shocked, angered and in disbelief” over how “eerily similar” the voice of Sky sounded to herself. OpenAI claimed the voice comes from an actor who is merely speaking in their normal voice. Due to privacy concerns, the company declined to share the actor’s name.
Sky’s voice has been available since the launch of ChatGPT’s voice mode last September. However, the connection to Johannson was not made clear until recently when the OpenAI demo featured an updated AI model with a more expressive tonality. This demo was uncannily similar to Johannson’s performance in Her.
As of the time of this post, Johannson merely desires an explanation, stating that she is seeking a “resolution in the form of transparency”, asking OpenAI to “detail the exact process by which they created” the voice of Sky.
