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If they ask James Earl Jones to do it, he says no, and then they hire someone with a deep voice in order to sound like him? Yes.

Except it doesn't sound like her, and that's not even the correct sequence of events.

It absolutely does sound like her, in this context where she is the voice in the AI voice companion zeitgeist.

In just the same way that if the context were "magical space villain in a black mask and cape" and someone was hired with a deep voice, it would be a clear rip-off of James Earl Jones.

And it requires a level of credulity that I find impossible to sustain to think that "the sequence of events" here doesn't start with "let's have a voice actor casting call and pick a voice that sounds like the one in the movie about this that everyone loves". I won't, however, be shocked if nobody ever wrote that down in a medium that is subject to legal discovery.

Also looking from the perspective of the lesser known voice actress, does Scarlett Johansson have the right to trample the lesser known voice artists future job opportunities by intimidating her previous employers?

Imagine being a potential future employer of the lesser known artist, would you dare hire her in the face that Johansson's lawyers might come after you?

Is this lesser known voice artist now doomed to find a job in a different sector?

Voice archetypes are much much older than Johansson, so by symmetry arguments, could those earlier in line sue Johansson in turn?

When a strong person is offered a job at the docks, but refuses, and if then later another strong person accepts the job, can the first one sue the employer for "finding another strong man"?

At some point the courts are being asked to uphold exceptionalist treatment and effectuate it on tax-payers dollars moving executive branches in case of non-compliance.

> Also looking from the perspective of the lesser known voice actress, does Scarlett Johansson have the right to trample the lesser known voice artists future job opportunities by intimidating her previous employers?

Right, it would be one thing if there was evidence that OpenAI asked the actress to imitate Johansson. But people are saying that using this voice actress at all without Johansson's permission shouldn't be legal, which is a bizarre claim. If someone thinks my voice sounds similar to a celebrities, now that celebrity owns my voice? In any other situation, everyone here would think such a standard would be completely outrageous.

(For what it's worth, I didn't find the Sky voice to sound anything like Scarlett Johannson personally)

Exactly, everyone claiming so hasn't actually listened to it [1], or they're basing their opinion off of "suspicious correlations", like that Altman mentioned "her" just before releasing a voice-interactive AI assistant.

[1] https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653

Maybe because it's the most famous recent good movie about voice interface AI?

He's wasn't citing Lucy or whatever other garbage.

Some may have listened to it and just have such a poor opinion of OpenAI that they allow it to cloud their judgment. Both voices sound like white women in a similar age group, must be Scarlett Johansson.

> Some may have listened to it and just have such a poor opinion of OpenAI that they allow it to cloud their judgment

I think that's exactly it, or they're critical of all corporations, and they're jumping all over suspicious timelines, like that they tried to convince her 9 months ago and again 2 days before the new release as some kind of evidence of malfeasance.

And not just white women, Rashida Jones is biracial and a lot of people think the voice sounds like hers. I agree that it actually sounds much more like Jones’ than Johansson’s - I think I’d be able to accurately distinguish between Sky and Johansson’s voice just about every time, but I’m not sure I would be able to do the same with Sky and Jone’s.

And as far as I can tell, OpenAI also had 4 different female voices - two from the API, and two in ChatGPT. So there are several different types of voices they covered.

> Rashida Jones is biracial and a lot of people think the voice sounds like hers.

I listened again and you're right, it does sound more like Rashida Jones.

> Exactly, everyone claiming so hasn't actually listened to it

Completely false. Even the journalists at the launch of "Sky" last year were singling it out of the batch of voices, and specifically asking OA about how it sounded like Johansson: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/25/chatgpt...

You mean people who are incentivized to stir up controversy were trying to stir up controversy? I'm shocked. This is definitely not a case where self interest would cloud anyone's judgment.

In case it's not clear, my moderately low opinion of Open AI is bested only by my even lower opinion of journalists.

The article says it sounded "somewhat similar." It doesn’t sound like anyone mistook it for Johansson, or thought it was the same voice:

> The new personas for ChatGPT are named Sky, Ember, Breeze, Juniper and Cove. 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.

No one said it was identical (and OA is rebutting a strawman when they expostulate on how they trained on a real human voice actress, which is not what Johansson's statement accused them of to begin with).

The point is here is someone who 'actually listened to it' at the debut long ago, and immediately asked the OA people about it. I don't know what more you want for similarity. They launched several voices, without any of the mentions of Johansson or _Her_ that have been brought up here or the controversy, and back then and there, on the spot, people felt the need to ask about how one sounded 'somewhat similar' to Scarlett Johansson specifically.

I would bet these charitable readings of OA intentions are going to get wiped away by some internal emails found during discovery. It does sound like Mr. Altman was talking about it publicly in a tweet, it’s probable there are internal comms about this.

> Also looking from the perspective of the lesser known voice actress, does Scarlett Johansson have the right to trample the lesser known voice artists future job opportunities by intimidating her previous employers?

This is weird, if not bizarre. Scarlett didn't do anything. Literally no action besides saying no. Then a company decides to impersonate her and use her performance in a movie as implicit marketing for a product. That's the company's problem, not hers.

> Is this lesser known voice artist now doomed to find a job in a different sector?

The lesser-known voice actor is dooming themselves to find a job in a different sector by contributing to the development of technology that will almost certainly replace all voice actors.

This is exactly the right argument. Accepting the lawsuit would give precedent to an insidious combination: Matthew+chilling effect

If I play the voices back to back, nobody thinks they're the same person.

If I ask which one is SJ, people that have seen her films know, those who don't, don't. (Hint, only one sounds hoarse like early smoker voice and self-assured even in the 'Her' role, only one sounds impossibly 2020s valley girl chipper and eager to please.)

Sure seems like all the dogpiling last week either didn't do a basic listen or ignored it, as it's much better for click farming to mock the cock of the walk.

> only one sounds impossibly 2020s valley girl chipper and eager to please.

I immediately thought "grade school teacher", although I was listening to the clip where she was telling a story.

> Except it doesn't sound like Johansson, I don't know why people keep saying this.

Would you ever say “except strawberries aren’t tasty, I don’t know why people keep saying this”?

Maybe it doesn’t sound like Johansson to you, but it does sound like her to a lot of people. Worse, evidence points to Altman wanting you to make that connection. It’s trying to sound like her performance in one specific movie.

> Maybe it doesn’t sound like Johansson to you, but it does sound like her to a lot of people.

I guarantee you that nobody who's ever heard her voice actually thinks that, go on:

https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653

> Worse, evidence points to Altman wanting you to make that connection. It’s trying to sound like her performance in one specific movie.

There is no such evidence.

For ten seconds I thought “Wow, that is strikingly familiar to her”. Then I realized that was the example from the movie. I tend to agree, not identical or even close but definitely some similarities. I don’t see a jury ruling that they’re too similar

> I guarantee you

You definitely do not. Think of the craziest conspiracy theory you can, one that has been debunked countless times, and I’ll show you people that have been shown the evidence yet still believe the conspiracy.

This case is not a conspiracy theory. But it is something where you disagree with a popular opinion. The point is that you’re projecting your thought pattern and way of understanding the world into everyone else instead of being empathetic and putting yourself on the other side.

Look, I get it. I also thought that the outrage about Apple’s recent ad was disproportionate. But I’m not going to go out of my way to defend the ad. I don’t give a hoot that a massive corporation is getting a bit of bad press for something largely inconsequential, I just wish the outrage had been directed at something which actually matters and go on with my life.

> There is no such evidence.

With this kind of dismissal, I don’t think it’s worth continuing the conversation. I’ll leave you to it. Have a genuinely good weekend.

> This case is not a conspiracy theory. But it is something where you disagree with a popular opinion

Is it a popular opinion? Where's the evidence of that? Or is it maybe just a manufactured clickbait outrage now bordering on conspiracy theory? I provided a link that clearly demonstrates the very foundational claim is wrong, and the article has already clarified the mistakes in the timeline that conspiracists are citing as evidence of malfeasance. This controversy is a textbook nothing burger and it annoys me to no end that people keep falling for these tactics.

I already said I didn’t think it was worth continuing the conversation, so I hope I don’t regret trying to be kind.

> Is it a popular opinion or is it manufactured clickbait outrage now bordering on conspiracy theory?

Please realise that calling something “manufactured clickbait outrage” itself borders on conspiracy theory. Again, empathise, look at your argument with an outside eye.

> it annoys me to no end

Don’t let it. Being annoyed on the internet only ruins your day. And the more unhinged you become, the less sense your arguments will make and the more it will backfire.

Unless you have a personal relationship with either Altman or Johansson, I recommend you let this one go. It’s not worth the cost of any mental wellness. Some issues are, but not this one. Save yourself for the issues that are important.

Again I wish you a relaxing weekend.

>I guarantee you that nobody who's ever heard her voice actually thinks that

Including Johansson herself and her family?

>After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer. Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named “Sky” sounded like me.

We can talk biases, but I think we're pretty far from "guarantee" in this matter.

>or is it manufactured clickbait outrage now bordering on conspiracy theory? I

Johannsen already has lawyers on the ready. This goes beyond some publicity stunt. You can be cynical, but I struggle to call a potential legal proceeding a conspiracy.

Linking to two small soindbites isn't going to undo an entire court case. I doubt I always sound the same in two identical line readings.

Sky sounds like Scarlett to me. Not all the time, not in every sentence or statement, but frequently enough that combined with Altman's outreaches to Scarlett there's no way I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Try to ask yourself: is it at all plausible that others operating in good faith might come to a different conclusion, particularly given the surrounding details? If you can't find your way to a "yes" then I'm not sure what to say, you must view everyone (seemingly the majority though who knows for sure) to be deluding themselves or trolling others.

I've been saying this for days, and I'm pretty firmly in the OpenAI critic camp.

The only reason people think it sounds like her is because they've biased themselves into it because of all the context surrounding it.

> they've biased themselves into it

Maybe the fault for that belongs to the company who tried to create the association in your mind by using a similar voice and tweeting about that one movie with the voice.

That’s basic advertising. They knew what they were doing. It’s just that it may have backfired.

I don't think it's a particularly similar voice to begin with, and the technology in general is very 'Her' like - which would also explain why they reached out to ScarJo to do an additional voice.

I think the tweet was dumb but in my layperson's understanding of the law and the situation, I doubt OpenAI is at any huge legal risk here.

It doesn't really matter their legal risk here, IMO. What matters is the court of public opinion in this case.

Even if they are able to show irrefutable proof that it wasn't ScarJo and is in fact another person entirely it will not matter.

This is one of those times that no matter what the facts show people will be dug in one way or another.

You seem to be missing the point: It wasn't that "people ... biased themselves into it"; it was the name, the ex-board-member's direct reference to Johansson, and Altman's tweet that did that.

>> Except it doesn't sound like Johansson, I don't know why people keep saying this. At best, the voice has a couple of similar characteristics,

To add to this, the legal standard isn't whether it sounds "like" her. It has to be a replication of her voice. Millions of people may sound or look "like" another person, that doesn't mean they are a copy of that person.

The best case study in voices imho is David Attenborough. He has a distinct voice that many have sought to replicate. But you know who else had that voice? Richard Attenborough (the actor from Jurassic Park). They are brothers. Sadly, Richard recently passed. Their voices are unsurprisingly nearly interchangeable, along with a thousand other people with similar life stories. So who gets to own complete rights to the distinctive "Attenborough" voice? In any other area of intellectual property the answer is simple: nobody. It doesn't exist and/or was created by people long before any living Attenborough walked the earth.

Similarly, courts ruled that GTA did not steal from Lindsay Lohan. One cannot own the image of generic California blonde in a red bikini. So why should Johansson own sexy/breathy voice of with a nondistinctive accent?

This. Its what people want to hear. If you heard that voice in a vacuum with no context and asked someone what famous person is it, I doubt many people would say Johansson. Some, sure, but not the majority.

The only thing Sam did wrong was play too fast and loose with the implication of "Her" given that he had been talking to ScarJo. Lawyers should have told him to just STFU about it.

I was confused because it doesn’t really sound much like her normal voice, and I didn’t see Her. So I looked it up—it sounds a little bit more like her voice in her… the movie where she’s adding some AI-like affectations to her voice.

I guess they decided to remove it for PR reasons or something.