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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

This is not a thing. They hired a voice actor, who spoke in her normal speaking voice. That voice is not SJ's intellectual property, no matter what it sounds like. Further, I don't know how you can say any intention here is "clear", especially given the track record on this particular story, which has been abysmal even after this story was published.

They could have taken auditions from 50 voice actors, come across this one, thought to themselves "Hey, this sounds just like the actress in 'Her', great, let's use them" and that would be fine. Laurence Fishburne does not own his "welcome to the desert of the real" intonation; other people have it too, and they can be hired to read in it.

Again: the Post has this voice actor reading in the normal voice. This wasn't an impersonator.

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> I don't know how you can say any intention here is "clear"

You are suggesting that it is coincidence that they contacted SJ to provide her voice, they hired a voice actor that sounds like her, they contacted SJ again prior to launch, and then they chose that specific voice from their library of voices and tweeted the name of the movie that SJs voice is in as a part of the promo?

I haven't suggested what they have done is illegal, given that the fictional company that created the AI "her" is unlikely to be suing them, but it is CLEARLY what their intent was.

What part of "actor" in "voice actor" did you not understand? You don't hire an actor to play themselves generally. "SJ" was not playing herself in Her.

> They could have taken auditions from 50 voice actors, come across this one, thought to themselves "Hey, this sounds just like the actress in 'Her', great, let's use them" and that would be fine.

Except that is simply not true. If their intent was to sound like Her, and then they chose someone who sounds like Her, then they're in trouble.

That is false. Read the appellate decision for Midler v. Ford. Remember that's a case where the first court to hear it said "lol no".

You should read it yourself, and the Watts case, and any other impersonator case.

You can use impersonators for parody, but not for selling products.

They didn't use an impersonator.

> "Hey, this sounds just like the actress in 'Her', great, let's use them"

You agree that OpenAI is choosing the voice because it sounds like SJ. How exactly is that different from impersonation?

That's perfectly fine. SJ does not have an intellectual property claim on someone else's natural speaking voice. This is addressed directly in Midler v. Ford.

You don't know that's what happened, but it wouldn't matter either way. Regardless: it is misleading to call that person an "impersonator". I'm confident they don't wake up the morning and think to themselves "I'm performing SJ" when they order their latte.

It’s not perfectly fine. If a company uses an actress because she sounds similar to a character they want to associate with their product, they are liable for damages whether or not the actress lists “impersonator” in her job description.

The key here is intent. If there was no intention for OpenAI to model the voice after the character Samantha, then you're right, there's no foul.

But as I have explained to you elsewhere, that beggars belief.

We will see the truth when the internal emails come out.

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