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
Clearly an SJ voice was the goal, given that Altman asked her to do it, asked her a second time just two days before the ChatGPT-4o release, and then tweeted "her" on the release day. The next day Karpathy, recently ex-OpenAI, then tweets "The killer app of LLMs is Scarlett Johansson".

Altman appears to be an habitual liar. Note his recent claim not to be aware of the non-disparagement and claw-back terms he had departing employees agree to. Are we supposed to believe that the company lawyer or head of HR did this without consulting (or more likely being instructed by) the co-founder and CEO?!

>>HarHar+r82
They hired the actor that did the voice months before they contacted SJ. The reaction on this site to the news that this story was false is kind of mindbending.

>>tptace+B82
Even if the voice actor was sourced before they originally contacted SJ, it was clearly the intent to sound like her. There are so many other distinctive voices they could have chosen, but instead they decided to go as close as possible to "her" as they could. Many people thought it was SJ until she stated it wasn't. I appreciate the voice actor may sound like that naturally, but its hardly coincidental that the voice that sounds most like the voice from "her" was the one chosen for their promotion. It is clearly an attempt to pass-off.

>>superm+0e2
This is not a thing. They hired a voice actor, who spoke in her normal speaking voice. That voice is not SJ's intellectual property, no matter what it sounds like. Further, I don't know how you can say any intention here is "clear", especially given the track record on this particular story, which has been abysmal even after this story was published.

They could have taken auditions from 50 voice actors, come across this one, thought to themselves "Hey, this sounds just like the actress in 'Her', great, let's use them" and that would be fine. Laurence Fishburne does not own his "welcome to the desert of the real" intonation; other people have it too, and they can be hired to read in it.

Again: the Post has this voice actor reading in the normal voice. This wasn't an impersonator.

>>tptace+NX2
> They could have taken auditions from 50 voice actors, come across this one, thought to themselves "Hey, this sounds just like the actress in 'Her', great, let's use them" and that would be fine.

Except that is simply not true. If their intent was to sound like Her, and then they chose someone who sounds like Her, then they're in trouble.

>>qarl+eZ2
That is false. Read the appellate decision for Midler v. Ford. Remember that's a case where the first court to hear it said "lol no".

>>tptace+G03
You should read it yourself, and the Watts case, and any other impersonator case.

You can use impersonators for parody, but not for selling products.

>>qarl+Y03
They didn't use an impersonator.

>>tptace+m33
> "Hey, this sounds just like the actress in 'Her', great, let's use them"

You agree that OpenAI is choosing the voice because it sounds like SJ. How exactly is that different from impersonation?

>>qarl+243
That's perfectly fine. SJ does not have an intellectual property claim on someone else's natural speaking voice. This is addressed directly in Midler v. Ford.

You don't know that's what happened, but it wouldn't matter either way. Regardless: it is misleading to call that person an "impersonator". I'm confident they don't wake up the morning and think to themselves "I'm performing SJ" when they order their latte.