Comment by frankacter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by frankacter | Hacker News Reader

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>Yes, but literally no one anywhere is suggesting that the voice actress used would be banned from work because of any similarity between her voice and Johansson's; that’s an irrelevant strawman

It's not. The original comment in this chain was drawing parallel to a lawsuit in which someone intentionally took steps to impersonate an actor.

This situation is a voice actor using their "natural voice" as a source of work.

If a lawsuit barring OpenAI from using this voice actor is successful, due to similarities to a more famous actor, that puts this voice actor's future potential at risk for companies actively wanting to avoid potential for litigation.

Suggesting a calming female persona as a real time always present life assistant draws parallel to a movie about a calming female persona that is a real time always present life assistant is not a smoking gun of impropriety.

Pursuing a more famous name to attach to marketing is certainly worth paying a premium over a lesser known voice actor and again is not a smoking gun.

Sky voice has been around for a very long time in the OpenAI app dating back to early 2023. No one was drawing similarities or crying foul and decrying how it "sounds just like Scarlett" ..

> This situation is a voice actor using their natural voice as a source of work.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40435388

> Sky voice has been around for a very long time in the OpenAI app dating back to early 2023. No one was drawing similarities or crying foul and decrying how it "sounds just like Scarlett" ..

No.[1]

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/177v8wz/i_have_a_r...

While you're right I should have chosen my words more carefully, a random reddit post with 68 upvotes doesn't really dispute the substance of my comment.

OpenAI has been plastered across the news cycles for the last year, most of that time with Sky as the default voice. There was no discernable upheaval or ire in the public space suggesting the similarities of the voice in any meaningful public manner until this complaint was made.

The Reddit post had a link to a Washington Post article. And what you think the substance of your comment was is unclear.

Most people don't use ChatGPT. Many people who use ChatGPT don't use voice generation. OpenAI's September update didn't have a demo watched by millions unless I missed something. Altman hyped the May update with references to Her. Some people thought the recent voice generation changes made the Sky voice sound more like Johansson. Some people gave OpenAI the benefit of the doubt before Johansson revealed they asked her twice. And what do you believe it would prove otherwise?

>Washington Post article. And what you think the substance of your comment was is unclear.

You mean this?

"Each of the personas has a different tone and accent. “Sky” sounds somewhat similar to Scarlett Johansson, the actor who voiced the AI that Joaquin Phoenix’s character falls in love with in the movie “Her.” Deng, the OpenAI executive, said the voice personas were not meant to sound like any specific person."

As I stated prior, and thank you for making my point, despite being publicly available for near a year, there was minor mention of similarities with no general public sentiment.

>Altman hyped the May update with references to Her

If by "hype" you mean throwaway comments on social media that general population was unaware.

Drawing a parallel to a calming persona of an always on life assistant from pop culture in a few throwaway social media posts from personal accounts such as "Hope Everyone's Ready" isn't hyping it as Her any more than Anthropic is selling their offerings as a Star Trek communicator despite a few comments they've made on social media.

Ambiguous "some people" overstates any perceived concern and "most people don't use ChatGPT" understates how present they've been on the news.

Mobile app, which heavily emphasized voice and has "Sky" as it's default voice The ChatGPT mobile application had over 110+ million downloads across iOS and Android platforms before the May announcement.

In regards to the November announcement, yes, voice was very prominent in it with Sky as the default language. (https://youtu.be/pq34V_V5j18?si=66lEWxgteBbtKifl)

> The original comment in this chain was drawing parallel to a lawsuit in which someone intentionally took steps to impersonate an actor.

> This situation is a voice actor using their "natural voice" as a source of work.

Work which was then marketed with heavy implications referring to another actor. Which is what makes this situation so similar to the earlier one.

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