Scarlett Johansson ‘Shocked, Angered’ After ChatGPT Used Voice ‘Eerily Similar’ to Her Own

Scarlett Johansson said she received an offer from ChatGPT to use her voice for its new system last year. After thinking about it, she declined. Yet, she said, OpenAI used a voice “eerily similar” to her own anyway.

In a statement to Rolling Stone on Monday, the actress shared that she was “shocked, angered and in disbelief” that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman used a voice so similar to her own for ChatGPT 4.0. that “my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference.” OpenAI claimed they used the voice of an unnamed actress.

In her statement Monday, Johansson revealed that she met with OpenAI about the opportunity back in September. At the time, the company CEO explained to her how using her voice could “bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable” with AI, she said. Ultimately, she decided not to participate.

Then, last week, OpenAI held a live demonstration of the ChatGPT voice “Sky,” which many believed sounded nearly identical to Johansson’s. Specifically, the voice seemed aligned with her voice in the film Her, which follows a man that falls in love with the female voice of his computer’s operating system.

In her statement, Johansson says Altman “insinuated that the similarity [of the voice] was intentional” when he tweeted the word “her” in reference to the film and the new ChatGPT model.

“Two days before the ChatGPT 4.0 demo was released, Mr. Altman contacted my agent, asking me to reconsider. Before we could connect, the system was out there,” she wrote.

Because of said action, Johansson hired legal counsel and sent a letter to OpenAI to “detail the exact process” of how they made “Sky.” The company then “reluctantly agreed to take down” the voice, Johansson claims.

“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,” Johansson said. “I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected.”

In a blog post on Sunday, OpenAI wrote that it used a different actress to develop the voice of “Sky,” though they did not reveal her name to protect her identity.

“We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity’s distinctive voice — Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice,” the company wrote.

OpenAI paused Sky anyway.

From Rolling Stone US.