OpenAI Pulls Voice from GPT-4o after Threats from Scarlett Johansson

This is hilarious

Everyone remember the movie “Her”? It’s not one of my favorites but it is interesting and a worthwhile watch. If you hadn’t noticed or read my previous article, AI girlfriends are already taking off in a big way which this movie portrays.

Perhaps the most interesting part of today’s AI girlfriends and the one in the movie, voiced by Scarlett Johansson, is that actual AI girlfriends have no needs and are not combative. When I rewatched the movie earlier this year that stark difference, where the AI in the movie had arguments with her male companion, raised her voice, and even swore at him, was the most obvious difference. Actual AI girlfriends behave very differently since they are made to be as positive as possible (hence many concerns about them).

But I’m astray. Last week, OpenAI launched its latest version with GPT-4o. Perhaps the most fascinating development was they have figured out how to turn voice prompts into something they can directly query the AI with, rather than first translating to text. This has made for much faster and more lifelike responses since tone is included in the analysis. See for yourself.

When I first saw this video, the very first thing that struck me was how similar the voice in the demo was to the voice in the movie Her, more specifically Scarlett Johansson. Except it obviously wasn’t her just someone that sounded close to her.

I firmly believe this was on purpose as Sam Altman included references to the movie in his tweets about the demo.

I thought it was very clever and went about my day. Except one person did not find it funny: Scarlett Johansson.

According to a statement she released today, OpenAI approached her last year to be the voice of their AI. She declined. In their own statement, OpenAI makes it clear they used a different actress entirely who is well compensated for her work.

But…they obviously picked a similar voice on purpose. And Sam Altman is a well known scumbag.

According to Johansson’s statement:

When I heard the released demo, I 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.

I would highly disagree it’s that similar, but it clearly was modeled after her.

So guess what? OpenAI has pulled the voice from use after Johansson sent some “letters” (i.e. legal threats).

Now, I wouldn’t really care about this except it’s really the only good vice in OpenAI’s repertoire. I was already planning ways to use it and now I feel like there’s no other good option. That and the fact I don’t think Johansson actually has a case.

See, they didn’t use her voice. It’s clearly someone else’s (and OpenAI makes that clear). It’s nowhere near illegal to sound similar to someone else. I’m sure she’d sue for using her likeness for economic gain but I don’t think someone imitating a voice has ever been tried in a court. In fact, I think good imitations have been used throughout history, although they probably fall under fair use rights.

It’s a great example of the myriad of issues we’ll see with AI as it gets better. And it’s great PR for OpenAI (and may well be a PR stunt).

Maybe we should all just consider how amazing it is a computer can mimic a human speaking so lifelike that it makes an actor so angry she hired legal counsel. That’s the real story here considering how long we’ve been stuck with computer-sounding voices.

Honestly, since I don’t think a lawsuit would get anywhere, I think it’s stupid of Johansson to complain and OpenAI to pull the voice. Neither party is in the right in my book. I’m curious what you think though so leave a comment below.

Personally, I’d much rather watch them duke it out in the courts. That would give me plenty to write about.

On to tomorrow.