zlacker

>>panark+(OP)
There are many people with voices similar to Scarlett Johansson's. If SJ is unwilling to be a voice actor for OpenAi, then why should OpenAI not find a similar voice and use that instead? SJ certainly does not have a monopoly on all voices similar to hers. Anyone in possession of such a voice has the same right as SJ to monetize it. And someone did in fact exercise that right. If you compare the Sky voice to SJ's, they're not the same.

OpenAI's mistake was caving to SJ. They should have kept Sky and told SJ to get lost. If SJ sued, they could simply prove another voice actor was used and make the legitimate argument that SJ doesn't have a monopoly on voices similar to hers.

>>kaiwen+C5
IANAL, but I think the mistake they made was constantly referencing the movie 'Her' when talking about Sky.

>>campbe+Z9
100%. This whole thing is more stupidity than anything else. There is nothing wrong with using a voice that sounds like her. There is everything wrong with referencing the movie and sort of implying it is the voice from the movie. They could have easily let others make the connection. So dumb.

>>daniel+nc
Why is it wrong to explicitly mimic a part played in a movie? Are we saying that the actor owns their portrayal of the role?

OpenAI should’ve owned their actions. "Yes, we wanted to get a voice that sounded like the one from Her." There’s nothing wrong with that.

>>sillys+Ic
Actors get a lot of rights to their likeness.

So, yes maybe?

>>pests+Cd
Hmm. Being able to say "thou shalt not make a character similar to Her" is a lot like saying "thou shalt not make a video game character similar to any other." It’s not an explicit copy, and their name for Sky was different. That’s the bar for the videogame industry; why should it be different for actors? Especially one that didn’t show her face.

This whole thing is reminiscent of Valve threatening to sue S2 for allegedly making a similar character. Unsurprisingly, the threats went nowhere.

>>sillys+6e
You've really contorted the facts here. This isn't a character, it's a voice.

The voice sounds remarkably like Scarlett Johansson's.

>>leland+9h
It’s the other way around. The contortionists are on the other side of the issue. We’re talking about OpenAI hiring someone to use their natural speaking voice. As movies say, any similarity to existing people is completely coincidental from a legal perspective.

From a moral perspective, I can’t believe that people are trying to argue that someone’s voice should be protected under law. But that’s a personal opinion.

>>sillys+rh
> We’re talking about OpenAI hiring someone to use their natural speaking voice.

How do you know?

>>pseuda+bj
They said so, and it’s what I would have done. I have no reason not to believe them.

Unfortunately a commenter pointed out that there’s legal precedent for protecting people’s voices from commercial usage specifically (thanks to a court case from four decades ago), so I probably wouldn’t have tried this. The cost of battling it out in the legal system is outweighed by the coolness factor of replicating Her. I personally feel it’s a battle worth winning, since it’s bogus that they have to worry about some annoyed celebrity, and your personal freedoms aren’t being trodden on in this case. But I can see why OpenAI would back down.

Now, if some company was e.g. trying to commercialize everybody’s voices at scale, this would be a different conversation. That should obviously not be allowed. But replicating a culturally significant voice is one of the coolest aspects of AI (have you seen those recreations of historical voices from other languages translated into English? If not, you’re missing out) but that’s not what OpenAI did here.