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Have y’all been following this Scarlett Johansson/ChatGPT drama? To recap: Last September, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman asked ScarJo to be the voice of ChatGPT 4.0. You know how Siri or Alexa will respond to you? Scarlett would be that voice, but for what’s probably the most well-known Artificial Intelligence platform out there right now. According to Scarlett, she politely said no. Despite her declination, Altman continued to ask her, even as recently as days before the latest ChatGPT system was released.
Well, I’m sure you can see where this one is going. ChatGPT 4.0, named “Sky,” released a demo earlier in May and its voice sounds a lot like ScarJo’s. Altman basically did a public “F you,” as well, Tweeting the word “her” on May 13. “Her” is likely a reference to Scarlett’s movie Her, in which she plays a chat system named Samantha. As you may recall, Scarlett engaged in a game of FAFO with Disney back in 2021 when she filed a breach of contract lawsuit against them for their handling of Black Widow’s release (an underrated movie that I actually did enjoy). This week, she once again proved that she is Not The One by having her legal team send OpenAI two letters and then releasing a statement calling Altman out. Altman, of course, tucked his tail between his legs, denied using Scar’s voice, gave some fake apology, and took it down.
Scarlett Johansson is speaking out. In a statement to ET, Johansson, 39, through her rep, accused Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, of recreating her voice for his company’s ChatGPT after she turned down the opportunity to voice the chatbot.
“Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system,” Johansson’s statement read. “He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people.”
“After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer,” the statement continued. “Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named ‘Sky’ sounded like me.”
Upon hearing the demo, Johansson said she “was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference.”
“Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word ‘her’ – a reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human,” the statement continued, alluding to the 2013 film, Her.
Days before the demo’s release, Johansson claimed in her statement, “Mr. Altman contacted my agent, asking me to reconsider. Before we could connect, the system was out there.”
“As a result of their actions, I was forced to hire legal counsel, who wrote two letters to Mr. Altman and OpenAI, setting out what they had done and asking them to detail the exact process by which they created the ‘Sky’ voice,” the statement read. “Consequently, OpenAI reluctantly agreed to take down the ‘Sky’ voice.”
Johansson’s statement concluded with a general statement about the emergence of AI.
“In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity,” the statement read. “I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected.”
After Johansson’s statement, which was first obtained by NPR, Altman addressed the situation in a statement to The Verge.
“The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson’s, and it was never intended to resemble hers,” he said. “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.”
It’s super f-cked up that Altman wouldn’t take no for an answer and did what he wanted anyway, but it’s not surprising. He’s a billionaire who seldom sees consequences for his actions. Even when OpenAI tried to fire his ass back in November, he ended up being rehired. We all know that men like Altman and big companies in general take advantage of and steal from the little people all of the damn time. It’s just gross how much the rules don’t apply to them and infuriating how easily they can escape legal repercussions. They picked the wrong target in Johannson, though. She does not play and has lots of money to fight back.
I’m glad that ScarJo’s statement made note of some of the dangers of using unregulated AI. It’s all fun-and-games when Alexa is telling us the weather (of which I ask her every single morning), but the further we go down the road and the better the technology gets, it’s going to become a very scary mess. It already is for a lot of young women, both celebrities and civilians. How do we protect our likenesses, work, and identities moving forward? We absolutely need more federal regulation. Despite there being calls for Congress to do something, the only current legislation on the books is the DEFIANCE Act, a proposed bill that’s supposed to protect deepfake victims, but that only covers victims of non-consensual deepfake pornography. A previous bill, the Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act, was introduced in December 2022, but expired in the House of Representatives’ last Congressional session. We’re falling behind on regulating AI and it’s only going to get worse.
Scarlett Johansson releases statement on OpenAI copying her voice for ChatGPT
• Sam Altman tried to hire her for the voice last September — she said no
• Was 'shocked' and 'angered' they used a voice so similar to hers
• Had to hire lawyers — which led to the voice being… pic.twitter.com/tsgOksDosN
— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) May 20, 2024
photos credit: Ron Sachs/CNP/INSTARimages, MAGO/RW/Avalon
