zlacker

>>mjcl+(OP)
Well, that statement lays out a damning timeline:

- OpenAI approached Scarlett last fall, and she refused.

- Two days before the GPT-4o launch, they contacted her agent and asked that she reconsider. (Two days! This means they already had everything they needed to ship the product with Scarlett’s cloned voice.)

- Not receiving a response, OpenAI demos the product anyway, with Sam tweeting “her” in reference to Scarlett’s film.

- When Scarlett’s counsel asked for an explanation of how the “Sky” voice was created, OpenAI yanked the voice from their product line.

Perhaps Sam’s next tweet should read “red-handed”.

>>anon37+t5
This statement from scarlet really changed my perspective. I use and loved the Sky voice and I did feel it sounded a little like her, but moreover it was the best of their voice offerings. I was mad when they removed it. But now I’m mad it was ever there to begin with. This timeline makes it clear that this wasn’t a coincidence and maybe not even a hiring of an impressionist (which is where things get a little more wishy washy for me).

>>nickth+R7
The thing about the situation is that Altman is willing to lie and steal a celebrity's voice for use in ChatGPT. What he did, the timeline, everything - is sleazy if, in fact, that's the story.

The really concerning part here is that Altman is, and wants to be, a large part of AI regulation [0]. Quite the public contradiction.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-openai-artificial...

>>windex+qA
What is so special about her voice? They could’ve found a college student with a sweet voice and offered to pay her tuition in exchange for using her voice, no? Or a voice actor?

Why be cartoonishly stupid and cartoonishly arsehole and steal a celebrity’s voice? Did he think Scarlett won’t find out? Or object?

I don’t understand these rich people. Is it their hobby to be a dick to as many people as they can, for no reason other than their amusement? Just plain weirdos

>>akudha+W81
Scarlett voiced Samantha, an AI in the movie "Her"

Considering the movie's 11 years old, it's surprisingly on-point with depictions of AI/human interactions, relations, and societal acceptance. It does get a bit speculative and imaginative at the end though...

But I imagine that movie did/does spark the imagination of many people, and I guess Sam just couldn't let it go.

>>meat_m+F91
It's not just that. Originally the AI voice in Her was played by someone else, but Spike Jonze felt strongly that the movie wasn't working and recast the part to Johansson. The movie immediately worked much better and became a sleeper hit. Johansson just has a much better fitting voice and higher skill in voice acting for this kind of role, to the extent that it maybe was a make/break choice for the movie. It isn't a surprise that after having created the exact tech from the movie, OpenAI wanted it to have the same success that Jonze had with his character.

It's funny that just seven days ago I was speculating that they deliberately picked someone whose voice is very close to Scarlett's and was told right here on HN, by someone who works in AI, that the Sky voice doesn't sound anything like Scarlett and it is just a generic female voice:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40343950#40345807

Apparently .... not.