zlacker

>>richar+(OP)
Well, here are some things that aren't really being disputed:

* OpenAI wanted an AI voice that sounds like SJ

* SJ declined

* OpenAI got an AI voice that sounds like SJ anyway

I guess they want us to believe this happened without shenanigans, but it's bit hard to.

The headline of the article is a little funny, because records can't really show they weren't looking for an SJ sound-alike. They can just show that those records didn't mention it. The key decision-makers could simply have agreed to keep that fact close-to-the-vest -- they may have well understood that knocking off a high-profile actress was legally perilous.

Also, I think we can readily assume OpenAI understood that one of their potential voices sounded a lot like SJ. Since they were pursuing her they must have had a pretty good idea of what they were going after, especially considering the likely price tag. So even if an SJ voice wasn't the original goal, it clearly became an important goal to them. They surely listened to demos for many voice actors, auditioned a number of them, and may even have recorded many of them, but somehow they selected one for release who seemed to sound a lot like SJ.

>>jmull+P12
Regardless of the moral implications, "sounds almost exactly the same" is not copyright infringement. Perhaps it could be trademark infringement if she had trademarked her voice like Harley-Davidson attempted (and failed) to trademark the sound of their motorcycles, but "sounds alike" is a pretty hard case to prove, and it's completely blown away if they can demonstrate that another human sounds indisputably similar.

People do celebrity impressions all the time, and that's not infringement either, because it's not actually copying that person's voice.

I'm sympathetic to SJ in this matter, especially after the Disney Black Widow debacle, but it sounds like she had the opportunity to write herself a nice check, and she turned it down.

On the basis of this article, it sounds like she doesn't have the cause of action that she had believed she had; I imagine that her legal team are now advising a fast settlement, but OpenAI's legal team might prefer to milk the free publicity for as long as they can, especially if they are fairly certain they would prevail at trial.

>>gunapo+Rf2
> it sounds like she had the opportunity to write herself a nice check, and she turned it down.

If I were SJ, I'd turn it down too. Shes in no need of money, and selling her voice to OpenAI would make most of creators and every single voice actor hate her (not to mention the Twitter mob).

In majority of creative circles, the current social norm is to hate AI, so touching AI in any way is too risky for reputation.