this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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[–] Nobody 493 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (9 children)

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.

[–] IchNichtenLichten 229 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No, you don’t understand, these guys are tech bros, they’re special, for reasons.

[–] billiam0202 242 points 5 months ago (1 children)

From the article:

they don’t just think they’re the smartest people in the world, they think that everyone else is stupid.

And that sums up techbros in one sentence.

[–] deweydecibel 47 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 110 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] Grimy 47 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (7 children)

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.

[–] Kase 31 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (6 children)

In Scarlett Johansson‘s statement, she says that OpenAI approached her to voice the Sky voice.

Whether or not OpenAI hired another actress that sounded very similar to her (hah.) and they are weirdly cagey about naming or they just ripped off the audio from her movies and are lying about hiring a voice actress, is not the extent of the issue.

People sounding alike just happens. But that we know they asked to use Johansson’s voice for this. After being rebuffed, they created Sky, which sounds a lot like Sam, and made several references to the Her movie. Sky is even presented with the same ‘personality’ as Sam. They aren’t just ripping off Scarlett Johansson’s voice acting, they’re ripping off the character as a whole, and trying to associate themselves with the movie. That’s shameful and rips off Spike Jonze as well as all the other creatives who created that movie.
And for what? Because tech bros didn’t get what they wanted, so they decided to try to rip off the characters anyway? Because Her is sort of a cultural touchstone, and their product is merely well-positioned, but GPT-4o will be in a crowded market space within 6 months?

It’s sort of pathetic - pretending to lean on the relevance of a movie because your product is destined to become irrelevant.
Also - highly ironic to me that Her is (somewhat) about how you can’t own something that doesn’t consent to be owned. And those dumb bitches went and ripped it off when they didn’t get consent. Well, now Sky’s gone to join Sam in some non-corporeal reality.

Sorry for the novel. I didn’t sleep well and I get weird when I’m sleep deprived.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 5 months ago (5 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] CosmoNova 33 points 5 months ago

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.

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[–] Suavevillain 176 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

Most of AI just seems to be blatant theft and copyright issues.

[–] [email protected] 85 points 5 months ago

No, it's only theft when it's poor people doing it.

When it's rich people, it's fair use of a publicly available resource.

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[–] MargotRobbie 146 points 5 months ago (8 children)

The precedent in this case already exists in Midler v. Ford Motor Co., in which when Academy Award nominated actress and singer Bette Midler sued Ford after Ford hired musical impersonators to sing famous songs for their commercials.

The court ultimately ruled in favor of Midler, because it was found that Ford gave clear instructions to the impersonating actress to sound as much like Midler as possible, and the ruling was voices, although not copyrightable, still constitutes their distinct identity and is protected against unauthorized use without permission. (Outside of satire, of course, since I doubt someone like Trump would be above suing people for making fun of him.)

I think Scarlett Johansson has a case here, but it really hinges on whether or not OpenAI actively gave the instruction specifically to impersonate Scarlett's voice in "Her", or if they used her voice inside the training data at all, since there is a difference in the "Sky" voice and the voice of Scarlett Johansson.

But then again, what do I know, I'm just here to shitpost and promote "Barbie".

[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This reads like a lemmy version of a shittymorph post

[–] MargotRobbie 25 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Hey, I have more than one comedy bit I do here other than something something Hell in a Cell, OK?

Speaking of which, Hell in a Cell isn't even that exciting anymore after the WWE made it an annual event and painted the cages red, and why did Seth Rollins get disqualified after he attacked "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt with a sledgehammer 2019 even though Hell in a Cell matches have always been no disqualification?

It's like their script writers don't even care about their own rules.

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[–] caveman8000 28 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Loved you in My Name is Earl

[–] MargotRobbie 41 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

That's, uh, "Jaime Pressly", who is totally not esteemed Academy Award nominated character actress Margot Robbie doing an American Southern accent to get more work in the US.

[–] hydrospanner 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Real talk: at this point, you may be my main reason to still be active on Lemmy.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (10 children)
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[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

That's probably going to be a big deal in future AI lawsuit.

If intellectual property isn't exterminated wholesale it will lead to explicitely refusing to answer any person or copyrighted works by name.

So instead of "sing a song about bananas by Taylor Swift" it will be "sing a song about banana by a female singer pop singer whose songs are, on the whole, quite straightforward, primarily revolving around the saga of girl-meets-boy, boy-fails-to-live-up-to-expectations, girl-pens-another-breakup-anthem. Each track features tales of romantic entanglements and emotional rollercoasters, culminating in catchy, radio-friendly tunes that are sure to dominate the charts, accompanied by dramatic twists and heartfelt reconciliations that appear almost out of thin air."

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[–] cybersandwich 79 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (30 children)

Lemmy is gonna lemmy.

There isn't any evidence that they used her voice for the "Sky" voice model. Actually, there is evidence that they paid a voice actress to model that specific actress's voice.

That actress sounds similar to Scarlett, but it isn't Scarlett's voice. Is that illegal? No. Is it grounds for a suit? maybe. Will Scarlett win? Maybe.

Let's put it another way. If you wanted to record an audio book, but you wanted the voice actor to have certain qualities that you think would help your book sell. You think Scarlett has all of those qualities, so you ask her if she would record it for you. She declines.

Well shit, that sucks. But wait! She's not the only person with those vocal qualities. I am sure you can find someone else with very similar qualities. So you hire another voice actress that has all of those--which coincidentally and very understandable sounds a lot like Scarlett. But it isn't Scarlett.

Everyone wants to say "big corp bad!" here, but if they truly didn't use Scarlett's voice and didn't do any sort of manipulation to make it sound more like Scarlett, then why CANT they do it. I get that Scarlett is upset, but she's basically mad that someone sounds like her--and decided to work for OpenAI.

If I wanted James Earl Jones to read my eulogy, but he isn't available or is unwilling. Why couldn't I get someone to sound like him to read it? Why should he be able to sue me for using a voice actor that sounds similar to him?

[–] [email protected] 59 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

There is almost certainly internal communication that basically reads "hey let's get an actress who sounds as close to ScarJo as possible". There's also the CEO tweeting "her" on the day of release.

Is that legal? IANAL, but OpenAI's reaction of immediately shutting that shit down leads me to believe they realized it is, in fact, illegal.

Your comparison is also incorrect. You're not getting a JEJ soundalike, you're getting a JEJ soundalike to do a Darth Vader impersonation. Meaningfully different semantics. They don't just want "white american woman who vaguely sounds like ScarJo I guess" they have proven beyond doubt that they want "The AI from the 2013 movie Her starring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson".


Also legality aside, it's really fucking weird and ethically wrong. I don't care if it's legal or not, you shouldn't be able to make an AI replicate someone's voice without their consent.

[–] Resonosity 23 points 5 months ago (1 children)

OpenAI's actions could just as easily be explained by them seeking to protect their image as much as possible, knowing that if they let the voice stay then bad PR would only grow.

Even if there is no connection to ScarJo in this case, it's still in OpenAI's interest to appease the public for the sake of their reputation.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago

There is without a doubt a connection to ScarJo. They asked her to voice the AI, they asked her again right before release, and the CEO tweeted "her" on release.

The only question is whether, backlash aside, they could technically get away with it (which does not make it right).

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago (6 children)

There is evidence they wanted to use Johansson’s voice, because they asked to use her voice. Both OpenAI and Johansson have acknowledged this.

As far as I know, OpenAI has said they hired a voice actor before approaching Johansson, but refuses to offer additional information to corroborate.

After failing to secure Johansson to lend her voice to Sky - which is portrayed as having not just a very similar voice, but a very similar personality to Sam - the OpenAI team made several references to the Her movie prior to the announcement.

Similar voices happen. But when all of those other pieces align, it’s fairly clear that they’re copying the character. Focusing on only the voice being similar is reductive. They are committing IP theft and they’re attempting to confer approval/endorsement/a relationship of/to the Sky personality from the people involved in the Her movie.

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[–] snausagesinablanket 57 points 5 months ago (15 children)

A big lawsuit is necessary to set a precedence.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Welp, we finally have the voice spoofer from Uplink.

"My voice is my passport, verify me."

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Fuck me sometimes I felt like I was the only person on the planet to play that game

[–] kromem 36 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The reference was actually a reference to the earlier movie Sneakers which was one of the first movies about hacking.

And yeah, Uplink was awesome.

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[–] NounsAndWords 41 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is very much the type of case that settles out of court for an undisclosed amount of money.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It could be, if she wants it to be.

It could also be the type of case where her lawyers stop openAI from ever using her voice again, if she wants that to be the case.

Being rich opens up options. If openAI would be using my voice instead, they'd have a wildly less popular product but nobody to sue them for it, cause I'd be using my money to still dream about home ownership at some point before I die, not to hire lawyers or fight windmills.

[–] MrMcGasion 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

To add to this, Scarlett Johansson took on Disney and they settled. And Disney is like the final boss of litigious companies (either them or Nintendo). If she has the same legal team for this, and they think she has a case against OpenAI, this could open the door for OpenAI to get rightfully clobbered for their tech-bro ignoring of copyright laws.

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[–] _sideffect 34 points 5 months ago

Shut this shit company down

[–] chemical_cutthroat 24 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (10 children)

This story is blowing so fucking far out of proportion it's honestly incredible. Just so everyone is one the same page, here is a video timestamped to the voice, and immediately following the voice you can hear the voice from Her as well.

https://youtu.be/3BWjomtK-94?si=tDu574b4GySpnPIy&t=42

They are not similar other than they are both female.

The whole "her" thing that Altman threw up on twitter is just because the goddamned movie was a touchstone for the kind of thing that they are doing. They weren't cloning the fucking voice. It's like naming your new iguana Godzilla. It's not going to destroy Tokyo any time soon, it's just a cultural reference, you know, like a meme.

As far as Johansson goes, she is falling prey to this shit just like every other celebrity that has been railing against big bad AI. There are so many sheisty lawyers trying to get their hands on the first big win from an AI suit that they will say anything to get a celebrity to sue, because if their firm wins, they become the Anti-AI lawfirm that all others will seek in the future. They will print money, but only if something sticks, and so far, nothing has. This will be another case like any other, where they take it to court, and there is no real basis for anything, and it ends up being all over the news and then disappearing like the whole debacle over Sarah Silverman's book. In three months there will be another case against AI, and again, nothing will stick, because the people putting the bug in people's ears don't understand how to use most of the functionality of their cellphone, let alone how generative AI works.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 5 months ago

They are not similar other than they are both female.

I thought Ferengi were supposed to have good hearing.

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[–] MeekerThanBeaker 19 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Something, something... don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness. Yet, they asked for permission and were denied.

Not sure if they thought they'd get away with it or if they just wanted this publicity. I'm thinking it was their hubris.

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[–] FlyingSquid 18 points 5 months ago

I'm much more concerned about the fact that the voice has simulated emotions behind it, leading people to trust their hallucinating AI even more.

[–] MehBlah 15 points 5 months ago

Send a huge bill and then sue for payment. Let them fight the fight for you.

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