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Comment by rowanG077 | Hacker News Reader

Leaving alone whether they sound similar at all for now, since that is subjective.

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.

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Nah, I think it’s pretty clear cut. Under current US trademark law (IANAL etc), if I sound like Morgan Freeman, I’m free to do what I want, as long as I don’t try to convince people that I’m Morgan Freeman. If I’m cast in a movie because my voice sounds like Morgan Freeman, and the promo posters don’t have his name or face on them, fine. If I do voiceover for a commercial and say something like “I’m Morgan Freeman, buy Joe’s Hotdogs” then that’s already a clear violation of Morgan Freeman’s trademark, because consumers might be confused into associating Joe’s Hotdogs with Morgan Freeman.

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).

I didn't see at all where OpenAI claimed that sky is associated with Scarlett Johansson. If true I agree that is bad.

The day of the demo, Sam posted a one word tweet “her” (the title of the movie, starring Scarlett Johansson as an AI Assistant, that people bring up when talking about the idea of AI companions). Minutes later his company debuted an AI assistant that sounded a lot like Scarlett Johansson, performing an assistant/companion role similar to hers in the movie. The association was noticed, widely discussed and definitely increased the value of the product through the implied association with (and implied endorsement by) Scarlett Johansson.

Or he could have tweeted 'her' to compare his product with the movie AI's conversational abilities and human-like interactions. It just depends on how one subjectively interprets a single syllable.

He could’ve, but did he? A judge will look at all this subjective stuff and make a decision, and they might not find that argument convincing given the other evidence on hand.

One obstacle I see here would be the vocal comparisons posted so far.[1][2][3] A majority of the commentators seem to think that the voices do not sound especially similar. If OpenAI can further prove their claim that Sky's voice belongs to a "professional actress using her own natural speaking voice" and that they "cast the voice actor behind Sky's voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson," I'm not sure a potential implied association of Altman's tweet would provide a strong case.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1cx24sy/vocal_...

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1cwy6wz/vocal_comp...

[3] https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1cx9t8b/vocal_comp...

He should have just deleted the tweet. Crisis averted.

With 9 billion voices on the planet, it would be hard/impossible to find a unique voice.

Which makes it all the more impressive that Sam Altman went out of his way to desperately beg just one person for their approval. What's wrong with giving up on the cringeworthy Her angle and finding a new, less-relevant celebrity to rip off?

Better yet, why is our multi-billion dollar AI company afraid of doing something original for once?

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