Sam Altman is showing us who he really is
slate.com
slate.com
"We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson."
Is he trying to suggest the company did not try to make the voice sound like her without her permission?
The statement sounds like it's written by a lawyer to be technically true while implying something that is actually false.
These are weasel words.
He sounds sneaky, evasive and intentionally deceptive.
We should not give a sneaky, deceptive and manipulative person this much power over our future.
We should not give anybody this much power over our future.
Incredible, really. It would have been so easy to just… not do that.
1. The plot of "Her" (guy falls in love with synthesized voice, played by Johansson)
2. Altman's affinity for the film (the article says he's called it his "favorite movie")
Reaching out to Johansson about cloning her voice, then doing so without permission feels like Altman is creeping on her.
The sooner this bubble pops, the better.
The new voice2voice from OpenAI allows for a conversational dialect, most prominently demonstrated in pop culture by the movie Her. Sam's tweet makes perfect sense in that context.
Sky's voice has been the default voice in voice2voice for almost a year now, and no one has made a connection to the Her voice until it started acting more conversational. It seems pretty obvious that OpenAI was looking for a more conversational assistant, likely inspired by the movie Her, and it would have been cool if the actress had helped make that happen, but she didn't, and here we are.
Also Juniper has always been the superior voice model. I just now realized that one of my custom GPTs kept having this annoying bug where the voice kept switching from Juniper to Sky, and that seems to be resolved now that Sky got removed.
In the movie The Seed of Chucky, Britney Spears gets killed. You can watch the clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3kCg5o0cHA. It is very clearly Britney Spears.
Except Britney Spears was not hired for the role. They hired a Britney Spears impersonator for the scene. They did everything that they could to make it look like Britney, and think it was Britney. But it really wasn't.
Do you think that Britney should have sued the Chucky franchise for that? If so, should Elvis Presly's estate also sue all of the Elvis Presly impersonators out there? Where do you draw the line? And if not, where do you draw the line between what happened in Chucky, and what happened here?
I really don't see a line between now having someone who sounded like the actress, and then tweeting the name of one of her movies, and what happened 20 years ago with Chucky killing someone who looked like Britney, then showing a license plate saying "BRITNEY1", and THEN saying, "Whoops I did it again." (The title of her most famous song at the time.) If anything, the movie was more egregious.
Why? The grandparent is not saying it's coincidence. Why is it not okay to hire someone who has a voice similar to celebrity X who you intentionally want to immitate? I mean if you don't actually mislead people to believe that your immitation is actually X - which would be obviously problematic?
Oops, that sounds like a match with Rashida Jones. Here’s one one of Scarlett J.:
https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1cx24sy/vocal_...
I have a suspicion that most people with strong opinions on this haven’t actually compared Sky and Scarlett Johansson directly.
Rashida Jones is indeed a closer match, and might well be the person they went to once Scarlett declined and showed no interest.
He sued Universal, and reportedly settled for $760,000.
Example article on the topic - https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/bac...
Setting a precedent that if your natural voice sounds similar to a more famous actor precludes you from work would be a terrible precedent to set.
Eg, James Earl Jones performing Darth Vader vs Mufasa vs Terence Mann are three different things.
Voice *actors* act. It is in the name. The voice they perform in is not their usual voice. A good voice actor can do dozens of different characters. If you hire a voice actor to impersonate someone else's voice, that is infringement. Bette Midler vs Ford, Tom Waits vs Frito Lay are the two big examples of court cases where a company hired voice actors to impersonate a celebrity for an ad, and lost big in court.
Or Altman could reveal the identity of the voice actress OpenAI did use. I'm sure that will happen, and remove all doubt...
You can listen to the voices side by side:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1cwy6wz/comment/l4...
And here is voice of another actress ( Rashida Jones ):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=385414AVZcA
This test is not blind but YOU tell me which you think is similar to the openAI sky voice? And what does that tell you about likely court result for Johansson? And having reached this conclusion yourself would you now think the other actress Rashida Jones is entitled to compensation based on this similarly test? Because there are no other women with similar voices? What might support from friends and family of Rashida Jones be an indication of?
If anything OpenAI tried to mimic the AI from the film Her and owners of that film may try to seek compensation. I hope that fails but they can try.
the same with white noise videos, they strike copyright infringement easy or at least they were. Did not check but I assume so it still is the case.
Like, do you want to pay her fee, Sam? Because the general idea is to not pay the fee. Which is why you probably cast the voice actor before reaching out to Johansson.
An example of this is Weird Al pays for the rights to things that are probably ok under fair use parody protection. Paying for the rights removes the possibily of a challenge.
But does he pay for rights? I’ve never seen that before and I’d love to read more.
> The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson's, and it was never intended to resemble hers. We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson. Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky’s voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better.
I'm skeptical whether this is true, but it's a pretty unambiguous and non-sneaky denial.
-the creator of a new widget takes tha widget to another widget manufacturer and says "Would you like to put your stamp on this? It's similar to yours, yet derivative enough and we would both benefit."
- other widget manufacturer says "no"
-Creator of widget then puts the badge on the widget anyway, gets called out/faces legal action
-Creator of widget says "Well, we planned to put the badge on there anyway before even considering the other widget manufacturer. It's just coincidence.
This shouldn't even go to court. Laughable that the face of modern tech is cheesing this much.
That describes nearly every statement to ever come out of a CEO's mouth. (Or anyone else who's primary job is marketing)
Well, here's Yishan Wong describing how Altman and the Reddit founders have conned Conde Nast: https://reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the_bes... he answers at https://reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the_bes...
Cool story bro.
Except I could never have predicted the part where you resigned on the spot :)
Other than that, child's play for me.
Thanks for the help. I mean, thanks for your service as CEO.
Altman should have said, "Yes, we made the voice similar to this washed-up actress, but her voice is not much different from anyone else with similar regional upbringing, year of birth, habits, and ethnic background, so we invite anyone else born in the mid-eighties, raised in Greenwich, and with Danish heritage, to sue us too. We'll see how well you do in court. Otherwise, get fucked."
This whole thing with anybody giving a shit about your voice, which isn't even yours, as it's a product of your environment and genes, and will be strikingly similar to anyone with similarities thereof, is insane.
Altman shouldn't have used weasel words, I agree. He should have owned it, because it's a total non-issue, and the people upset about it need to be shamed as the Luddite assholes that they are.
Swedish, I would have guessed? Danes much more frequently use "Johanssen" with an 'e', AFAIK.
I think this should be applied to our government. In my opinion, it is a failing in the structure of our government that those running the country control the police and appear to rarely be investigated unless by the request of a political opponent. They are seemingly outside of the law. It would be better if they were under perpetual investigation; forever kept in check. We should have assurance that those leading our country are not villainous traitors.
Interestingly one of the things that came out of 2020 was that nobody appears willing to control the police. Unless by police you mean FBI, which would both make sense for investigating a national politician and be directly under the control of the executive.
While I don't agree with that statement, I will clarify that I was using the term "police" to encompass all agencies in both USA and Canada capable of legally conducting an investigation at the federal level and carrying out an arrest. As far as I am aware, these agencies are all funded by our federal governments. Even though in my mind I was thinking of only the USA and Canada, the structural flaw probably applies to most governments, if not all governments ( speculating ). The flaw being that the leaders of our nations conduct national affairs as though they are shielded from the law policing its citizens. They are getting away with using our national resources ( financial, material, human etc ) in ways that may benefit their own agendas, but are observably harmful to our economy and therefore the citizens at large. If an investigation could prove that my speculation is true, then it would be in both our nation's best interest to deal with the problem both swiftly and legally. My hope would be that such an outcome would instigate reform to address the root cause. Without an investigation, we are at the mercy of waiting for the next election, but if our leaders are egregiously harming the interests our nations' citizens as a whole, we should not have to wait until their term is complete. I will add one more thing, the problem is not limited to economics. but also the abuse of the press and education to influence how we as a nation are able to learn about and understand both national and global politics.
sneaky, deceptive, and manipulative is a tag line for many billionaires. you don't get that rich without stepping on many people.
Without having any context about who the voice was, or the "Drama" between OpenAI and actress in question, or even really being aware of Scarlett Johansson's body of work, I immediately went "Oh that's Scarlett Johansson or whatever, cool"
To read all of this after the fact is almost comical. It's as if the powers that be realized the issues with the "one-man-in-charge-of-ai" platform and created this almost unbelievable story to decredit him.
Anyone who heard them both side by side would immediately realize this.
I made this myself. They do not sound the same to me. Am I living in a bizarro world?
In fact I think Rashida Jones would be a closer (but still not identical) match vs Scarjo
IN FACT, I bet any young woman's voice spoken clearly would sound as similar
Rashida Jones, as your link indicates, might be a closer match.
Or literally any young woman who enunciates clearly.
https://soundcloud.com/peter-marreck-fb/sky-voice-and-scarjo...
I'm sorry but either you are tone-deaf or these are not remotely the same voice. I made this myself after getting fed up with this bullshit.
Staying relevant is all that matters these days.
OpenAI's mistake was caving to SJ. They should have kept Sky and told SJ to get lost. If SJ sued, they could simply prove another voice actor was used and make the legitimate argument that SJ doesn't have a monopoly on voices similar to hers.
I think what’s going on here is that Scarlett is famous, and so media outlets will widely cover this. In other words, this latest incident hasn’t riled up people any more than usual — if you scan the comments, they’re not much different from how people already felt about OpenAI. But now there’s an excuse for everybody to voice their opinions simultaneously.
They’re acting like the company literally stole something.
It also didn’t help that OpenAI removed the Sky voice. Why would they do that unless they have something to hide? The answer of course is that Scarlett is famously rich, and a famously rich person can wage a famously expensive lawsuit against OpenAI, even if there’s no basis. But OpenAI should’ve paid the cost. Now it just looks like their hand was caught in some kind of cookie jar, even though no one can say precisely what kind of cookies were being stolen.
For the “her” reference(s?), was there anything beyond the single tweet?
With Johansson voicing the AI. And now they're marketing their AI sounding like Johansson, referencing the movie that had Johansson voicing the AI.
Yeah, no similarities at all there.
OpenAI should’ve owned their actions. "Yes, we wanted to get a voice that sounded like the one from Her." There’s nothing wrong with that.
That's assuming they did, right now they're asking us to pretty please trust them that their girlfriend from Canada is really real! She's real, you guys! No I can't show her to you.
2. Ford explicitly hired an impersonator. OpenAI hired someone that sounded like her, and it’s her natural voice. Should movies be held to the same standard when casting their actors? This is about as absurd as saying that you’re not allowed to hire an actor to play a role.
Waits v. Frito Lay, Inc was '92, and cited it. They used a Tom Waits-sounding voice on an original song, and Waits successfully sued:
> Discussing the right of publicity, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the jury’s verdict that the defendants had committed the “Midler tort” by misappropriating Tom Waits’ voice for commercial purposes. The Midler tort is a species of violation of the right of publicity that protects against the unauthorized imitation of a celibrity’s voice which is distinctive and widely known, for commercial purposes.
https://tiplj.org/wp-content/uploads/Volumes/v1/v1p109.pdf
Of course, who knows what a court will find at the end of this. There is precedent, however.
They say so, yes. Seems like they didn't want to go through discovery in order to prove it.
Correct, while Midler presents a similar fact pattern and is a frequently taught and cited foundational case in this area, the case law has evolved since Midler, to an even stronger protection of celebrity publicity rights, that is even more explicitly not concerned with with the mechanism by which the identity is appropriated. Waits v. Frito Lay (!992), another case where voice sound-alike was a specific issue, has been mentioned in the thread, but White v. Samsung Electronics America (1993) [0], while its fact pattern wasn't centered on sound-alike voice appropriation, may be more important in that it underlines that the mechanism of appropriation is immaterial so long as the appropriation can be shown:
—quote—
In Midler, this court held that, even though the defendants had not used Midler's name or likeness, Midler had stated a claim for violation of her California common law right of publicity because "the defendants … for their own profit in selling their product did appropriate part of her identity" by using a Midler sound-alike. Id. at 463-64.
In Carson v. Here's Johnny Portable Toilets, Inc., 698 F.2d 831 (6th Cir. 1983), the defendant had marketed portable toilets under the brand name "Here's Johnny"--Johnny Carson's signature "Tonight Show" introduction–without Carson's permission. The district court had dismissed Carson's Michigan common law right of publicity claim because the defendants had not used Carson's "name or likeness." Id. at 835. In reversing the district court, the sixth circuit found "the district court's conception of the right of publicity … too narrow" and held that the right was implicated because the defendant had appropriated Carson's identity by using, inter alia, the phrase "Here's Johnny." Id. at 835-37.
These cases teach not only that the common law right of publicity reaches means of appropriation other than name or likeness, but that the specific means of appropriation are relevant only for determining whether the defendant has in fact appropriated the plaintiff's identity. The right of publicity does not require that appropriations of identity be accomplished through particular means to be actionable. It is noteworthy that the Midler and Carson defendants not only avoided using the plaintiff's name or likeness, but they also avoided appropriating the celebrity's voice, signature, and photograph. The photograph in Motschenbacher did include the plaintiff, but because the plaintiff was not visible the driver could have been an actor or dummy and the analysis in the case would have been the same.
Although the defendants in these cases avoided the most obvious means of appropriating the plaintiffs' identities, each of their actions directly implicated the commercial interests which the right of publicity is designed to protect.
–end quote–
> Ford explicitly hired an impersonator. OpenAI hired someone that sounded like her, and it’s her natural voice.
Hiring a natural sound-alike voice vs. an impersonator as a mechanism is not the legal issue, the issue is the intent of the defendant in so doing (Ford in the Midler case, OpenAI in a hypothetical Johansson lawsuit) and the commercial effect of them doing so.
[0] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/971...
So I guess you wouldn't mind if someone killed you, since laws against murder are much older than that? Shit, outmoded old boomer thinking, amirite?
Wow, when you realise how you're coming off here...
Yes, they should have not reached out again, but now they are screwed. In no way will they want a trial and associated discovery. SJ can write her own ticket here.
Voice impersonation has been a settled matter for decades. It doesn't matter that they used another actress. What matters is that they tried to pass the voice off as SJ's voice several times.
Or... hear me out... maybe they couldn't prove that, which is why they caved. Caved within a day or so of her lawyers asking "So if it's not SJ's voice, whose is it?"
That may not be how it should work, but it is very much how the law currently works.
How much influence does @sama have around here nowadays?
For the record, I was never impressed with him - I am not aware of single consequential thing he has done or built other than take the credit for the fine work of the AI scientist + engineers at OpenAI. It feels like the company is just a vehicle for how own ambition and legacy, not much else.
Look at it this way: if the community didn’t flag it, it would be the mods’ duty to get this one off the front page. So whether it was the community or the mods is incidental.
Users flagged it and it also set off the flamewar detector. I don't think we'd turn the penalties off on this one because because this article is derivative of the threads HN has already had on the recent things - threads like these:
Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40421225 - May 2024 (970 comments)
Jan Leike Resigns from OpenAI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40363273 - May 2024 (391 comments)
Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40361128 - May 2024 (780 comments)
Edit: also OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40393121 - May 2024 (961 comments)
Those were huge threads!
Sometimes media articles are driven by the topic getting discussed on Hacker News in the first place. That is: major HN thread -> journalist takes notice -> article about topic -> HN user submits article -> another HN thread—but now it's a repetitive one. We don't need that feedback loop, especially because the mind tends to resort to indignation to make up for the lack of amusement in repetitive content (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...), and the earlier threads have been indignant (and repetitive) enough already.
> How much influence does @sama have around here nowadays?
Zero. He never asked for any change about anything HN-related even while he was running YC, and certainly not since then. Btw Sam was the person who posted https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/two-hn-announcements/.
> For the record, I was never impressed with him
(I'll add a personal bit even though that's usually a bad idea... I remember hearing this kind of comment about Sam going back to the Loopt days. My theory is that it had to do with pg praising him so publicly—I think it evoked a "why him and not me?" feeling in readers. The weird-ironic thing is that the complaint has only grown as Sam has achieved more. Running OpenAI through the biggest tech boom since the iPhone is...rather obviously massive. I think if Sam unifies gravity into quantum theory, brokers peace in the middle east, and cures cancer, we'll still be hearing these complaints—because they're not really grounded either in objective achievement or lack of it. It's some kind of second-order phenomenon, and actually rather interesting. At least if you aren't Sam!)
You're right, posting this was a bad idea. It reads like a "neener neener you're just jealous" defense of someone you happen to like.
There is, however, a more dominant rule, which is never to contradict an angry crowd, because doing so only produces more of the same. I break that rule sometimes but not often.
(Edit: s/mob/crowd. I realized on my bike ride hours later that 'mob' was too harsh.)
I'm not saying he did not achieve anything significant, but its not clear what those things are, other then having the backing of PG and others.
I'm older and have played the game of corporate game of thrones. I have seen far too many selfish sycophants rise to leadership, only to eventually make things worse than better by using their positions as a platform for their own self interest. It's a big reason why companies like Boeing and GE become hollow shells dependent on government assistance, while companies like Costco and Alcoa last for a long time.
So I want to know what exactly sama has done to deserve prestige and recognition the he has. Bc right now, it looks like cult of personality.
I suspect in such a case people may say that Sam's just using the work of other people or his employees. But then again I know nothing much of him personally and hence wouldn't really want to pick a "side".
Yeah, creating massive hype about regurgitating others' thoughts is kind of similar to becoming the warden of the world's largest digital pris...eh, walled garden.
They're both massive somethings, all right.
My understanding of western law is that things are ok unless law forbids it. So they are operating in an area that under _current_ laws is ok but because of what may be at stake many wish the current laws were different and are willing to use litigation and lobby efforts to that end.
This is NOT IN REPLY TO YOU but a general observation: Imagine the litigation that will happen when brain implants enable brain to brain sharing sensations and thoughts. Imagine the horrible copyright abuse! How will the publishing industry and sports industry and Hollywood control the rampart piracy?!?
Not your parent comenter but please allow me to enlighten you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Bright
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_(programming_language)
When in doubt, always double-check who you're replying to in HN. We are lucky to have many great minds around.
You are assuming that who came up with knowledge is important. I think Walter was saying that he would rather the knowledge not be forgotten, not that he was the one who provided it.
Have we? Certainly the people litigating haven't. And as this article notes, actors' newest contract does have protections against AI. SAG-AFTRA's press release states [0] they are pursuing legislation. That could be bluster or could go nowhere, but certainly people haven't given up.
[0]: https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-statement-regarding-scarl...
Given the fact that many, many people make their software MIT licensed (or rather, do whatever, I don't care license), I think most of us will be ok with that :)
The artist is not defined by their past work or other miscellaneous artifacts, but their perspective and creativity. This too is not a revelation. AI has nothing to do with this. It's just a means to an end.
The real problem is the legal stuff. Everything else is hype.
Sam Altman tried something. ScarJo filed a lawsuit. ChatGPT took down the voice. That's it guys. The system worked like it should. But to suggest that he's a terrible person because of it is just beyond me. This is hardly a #MeToo type situation. She's a rich and famous Hollywood actor. She's OK.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that he's a terrible person just because of this.
This just confirms it.
How about if the production company that made "Her" wants to make "Her 2". SJ declines the voice work. Are they not allowed to hire A to do the voice work? They ask SJ again but she still declines. They make the movie with A. Was it bad form?
Just trying to figure out where people would draw the line.
Actors don't work in films without detailed contracts, so the normal rules don't necessarily apply in that situation. The producers of Her might have the right to use SJ's likeness in related material. In any case, if they made another movie with a soundalike, the soundalike would be credited and not just called "A", so there would be no confusion about whose voice it was.
Presumably, the production company and Scarlet Johansson would have it in their contract what to do in case she doesn’t want to act in a sequel.
No contract exists between OpenAI and Scarlet Johansson.
If OpenAI loses, does this mean this voice actor cannot do their job any longer, because it happens some other actor has a similar voice?
Could Sky's voice actor sue a movie Johansson works in, because Johannson is copying her voice?
No. Just as if they hired a writer to do something that made them liable for copyright violation, or an engineer for something that made them liable for patent violation, those workers would not be banned from work.
The violation of right of personality isn't mere similarity of voice.
OpenAi might have done something wrong by hiring her with the intention of making a voice model they can leverage Scarlett's fame to market
Are you sure about that? Want to bet it wont ever reach discovery?
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/e913bd02-2582-4258-819f-2d5a00b...
It's one thing to copyright a performance or own a likeness. Owning the sound of a voice is scary territory we do not want to get into, or the estate of every singer will be suing the estate of every other singer who will be suing the remaining actual living singers.
Thinking about replying to this comment? Don't make your writing style sound too much like mine, I have lawyers standing by. And all you trendy kids that type without caps and punctuation can expect a visit from the estate of e.e. comings.
I think though that Sky's performance is similar to ScarJo's performance in Her. They're both playing AI voices.
Based off his words and actions, Sam Altman is not a bastion of ethics or good morals.
unless you’re running a company into the ground and getting a bailout from your rival who is trying to delay an antitrust suit, then you’re not doing Steve Jobs correctly
Their company isn't just a business, it's a cult, and they're the Founder (notice the capital "F") and part of being in charge of this cult is asserting dominance over others. Steve knew to rarely pull this outside of tech executive circles; the new generation doesn't seem to keep it in SV. Musk is the go-to example but Altman's turning that way too.
The people that emulate Steve Jobs poorly are usually real assholes with a long list of ethical mistakes.
Jobs lied to Steve Wozniak. Atari gave Jobs $5000 to make Breakout for Atari. He told Wozniak he got $700 so Wozniak took home $350.
Was it an ethical mistake? Sure. He should have at least disclosed that he was receiving the bonus money, even if he didn't want to share it.
But claiming it was a "major ethical mistake" seems fairly out of touch with reality.
And of course, taken in the context of all of the good things they did together, it was completely insignificant and Woz has said as much.
If there's a comic book villain tech leader out there, it's a CEO of some lifeless conglomerate that mainly buys out the competition and fires everyone aboard, or it's someone in charge of society-altering tech who is choosing to misuse it. And I'm not going to name names.
He refused to recognize his daughter even after a paternity test, and despite being a multi millionaire 1000 times over only paid child support when forced to by the courts.
Does that sound like the behavior of a good and ethical person?
FWIW, I think he did understand some very fundamental truths about how to sell technology to the masses, but he definitely diverged from Alan Kay's philosophy outlined in "Dynabook".
IMO, he's less of a "savior" and more of a "god-tier salesperson".
Edit: I mentioned the "Dynabook", because Jobs often used the "bicycle for the mind" line, in interviews and newspaper ads.
The most iconic superficial Steve Jobs impersonation was the Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.
Never mind China, Europe seems to have had enough and even DC is having enough on some level. Not sure when this started, didn't seem to be at this level ten years ago.
I and others I know are against them, and we are like some of them were before their initial money raise - preparing for system design interviews, debugging from trace id's, studying covariance and contravariance. They really seem to be off in their own bubble of affluence. Not sure what year this started taking off - was definitely after 2014 at some point.
Don't lump us in with the out of control tech bro culture people like Musk.
There's a meme on Twitter that OpenAI has "lost the mandate of heaven" over the past week or so, and while it makes for a funny joke, I think there really is some truth underneath it.
Look, I'd have respected it if you reported the voice sounded like Her by doing your own investigative research. To now pile on just shows you were sleeping at the wheel before, so be objective, don't pretend to know that it is a done deal only now.
I'm glad for you. Enjoy your "journalism".
sooooo many things would be
I think what confuses me is if you have made a business decision like this did nobody think about the downside case? Clearly not because they backed out so quickly.
I think this will set an extremely bad precedent. People owning their own voice is clear and that is the way it should be. But people owning how their voice sounds like is weird. You can find thousands and thousands of people with similar voices. We are going to path now where a single person can have ownership of that and block the others from using their voice how they want.
And that’s what happened here: OpenAI “hired a machine” that sounds like ScarJo, and then attempted to associate their product with ScarJo’s brand without her permission. You’re already not allowed to do that.
And if you want to make it as a voice actor and you sound like Morgan Freeman? Try your hardest to develop a personal brand distinct from his, and don’t take gigs where people want you to impersonate him (unless it’s a really obvious parody and you’re cool with the angle).
Better yet, why is our multi-billion dollar AI company afraid of doing something original for once?
Snowflake's Arctic comes to mind. Great model - it will answer any dark question I through at it. No safety rails. I liked that it didn't treat me like a baby!
Llama/Phi is pretty chill too. Can ask it about bombs, viruses, chemicals and it won't refuse.
However, they both sound like AIs because Scarlett is playing that role and so is OpenAI's voice app.
I think ISWYDT.
You can certainly patent it.
"In general terms, a “utility patent” protects the way an article is used and works (35 U.S.C. 101), while a “design patent” protects the way an article looks (35 U.S.C. 171)."
Microsoft argued in court that you can not and won. See Apple vs Microsoft if I recall correctly.
I also think that he has bullied/twisted enough arms to get 'his way', but Scarlett doesn't give a poop about some tech-bro. He is a nothing to her.
Also, this tech-bro is stupid enough to not understand that her voice, as well as her image are of great value to her, and if she 'loses her voice', and her voice becomes a toy to everyone's whim, she will be losing money/contracts/etc. in the future. Or he does understand and he simply didn't care until the backlash.. (wuss...)
I would love to have the voice of Majel Barrett if I am to ever get an Alexa or a similar device. But Scarlett's voice would very soon be used for dirty-talk, if 'this' was to happen.
And I suggest the movie "The Congress" (2013!!!)(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/) with Robin Wright, that sets the discussion about AI, voice/image of actors, etc.
Scarlett should sue, discovery phase would be hilarious and very illuminating.
as already outlined, this is a standard practice in other context for any "fast-moving" tech company. the only reason we are discussing it is due to a pop culture reference.
this is a lot of energy wasted which can be better spent on the bigger picture.
It won't work, but that won't stop them trying to destroy everything anyway.
It’s the lying about it part.
Sam’s statement partially contradicts this by saying they contracted the voice actor before ScarJo - but I believe there’s enough intent shown in ScarJos original tweet that Sam as a default disregarded the entire interaction as an inconvenience where he could be “naughty” and get away without consequences.
I'm sure lots of movies have tried to cast Scarlett Johanson for a role and she declined, so they went with another actress who looked similar. Should she sue them too?
If the job is being the first person you reached out to, then you accept that you can't get the job done...
Legally. He took the other option.
Who the HELL has time to seriously care if ONE OF THE voices sounds like some famous actress ?
At least when people mentionned DoD AI contracts or some privacy issues there was some merit...
Who would have guessed this would happen?
But it’s not looking good now the board can’t even fire him.
It was ranked #1 a few minutes ago, and now below 20. It's 190 points posted < 60 minutes ago; other articles with this many points even 4 hours ago are top 5.
You can watch this submission sink in realtime by refreshing; it's amazing almost.
See a live screengrab here: https://imgur.com/a/E3fOEvF everything with this submissions point / time ratio is ranked way higher.
If you read that and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
40 minutes after posting: #17 with 171 points and 120 comments
50 minutes after posting: no longer on the front page with 207 points and 169 comments
"Amazing" isn't the word for it.
This story is not. This story is boring drama. HN is not an advocacy platform.
> Agreed, I mean "incredible" and not in the good way. Someone needs to take this to Twitter / X or another platform that isn't insider controlled.
Please do. We don't want these kinds of stories (or comments) here.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Edit: IMO OpenAI should just make their voice engine open source. Then we'll see if ScarJo or anyone else can stop the open-source community. I expected more from her.
Midler v Ford: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/849...
Waits v Frito-Lay: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/90...
One interesting thing is that these cases are really deep in common law. They are quite far removed from statues, and statues are cited in the opinion only to argue how they don't apply.
In these cases, the voice was "distinct", and they intentionally copied it. It's possible these don't apply to ScarJo, although the fact that they negotiated with her is a bad sign, since that was also a common fact in the prior cases.
The fact that he pulled it down has me believing that he knew there was a real chance the company would get in trouble if he hadn't.
Cat's already out of the bag: https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intel...
I'm responding more to the idea of "legitimate" businesses just cloning people's voice to associate their identity with a product by comparing it to something slimeballs do to the elderly, including my late grandmother.
Which exposes how empty this shit is, they tried to get Scarlett because even they know people care about her, a real person, and not a random voice with no cultural context.
They should have just created a unique voice from the start. And they will likely do that moving forward.
People really want their to be a crime here with no evidence. You all have ears, you can listen to both clips back to back and discover, unsurprisingly, that they are actually different voices. Not even an imitation.
OpenAI tried to benefit by using "her" likeness without permission or a contract/license
Yeah, "the major AI product in the world" to ask to use a famous actors voice, and then when she says no, create something similar anyways, is at least a little be slimy and really a bad idea on many different levels (legally for one thing).
So what? It's one of my fav movies too.
> they repeatedly tried to get the voice actor from Her.
She didn't do it. So they went ahead and made a voice that sounds like her. It's not like she contributed to making the voice and then decided not to have it used.
And before you try this rebuttal, this is different from machinery taking the jobs away from manufacturing plant workers, it's much bigger than that. With manufacturing plant workers, at least humans were still needed for recognizing a fault in the machinery and stopping the line. Humans still needed to maintain the machines. Humans needed to design and build the machines. In this scenario, a couple of central parties are creating these tools, and then nobody is needed to ensure a quality product any further down the chain than that. There either needs to be a legal consequence to this, or a 4.4 billion dollar industry is now just closing their doors. That's all well and good until all of those peoples' families need to eat their next meal or sleep in a home. But I guess their lives aren't your problem.
It won't be anytime all that soon, in my opinion. But generative AI is coming for many (most? all?) sectors of work. And if history is any indicator, millions of people will have to suffer and/or die before governments step in to do much of anything about it. Probably especially-so in the US, since we tend to lean towards "free markets" that benefit the massive companies that have already made it, and allow them to chew through human resources (the people, not the department) mostly any way they see fit. So many people are going to lose their jobs and never find work in their field again, and they will all either die or retrain for all the same laborer positions and end up with a massive surplus of workers in those fields too. And that's only until we become skilled enough in robotics and generative AI to automate the trades too.