* 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.
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?!
But the tiny sliver of disagreement I have with "this is a bad thing to discuss here and we should all feel bad" is that some people who frequent this site are sometimes some of the people involved in making decisions that might lead to threads like this. And it might be nice for those people to have read some comments here that push back on the narrative that it's actually fine to do stuff like this, especially if it's legal (but maybe also if it isn't, sometimes?).
The way I see this particular discussion is: outside the tech bubble, regardless of the new facts in this article, people see yet another big name tech leader doing yet another unrelatable and clearly sleazy thing. Then what I see when I come to the thread is quite a few of the tech people who frequent this site being like "I don't get it, what's the problem?" or "this article totally refutes all of the things people think are a problem with this". And I feel like it's worth saying: no, get out of the bubble!
I was just reading the comments after reading the article to see if anything new came up, and was pretty appalled at the quality of commentary here. I'm not participating in the thread more because it's not worth it.
> But the tiny sliver of disagreement I have with "this is a bad thing to discuss here and we should all feel bad" is that some people who frequent this site are sometimes some of the people involved in making decisions that might lead to threads like this. And it might be nice for those people to have read some comments here that push back on the narrative that it's actually fine to do stuff like this, especially if it's legal (but maybe also if it isn't, sometimes?).
I've been involved in big decisions in other Big Tech companies. I'm proud of having fought to preserve Tor access to our offerings because I believe in Tor despite the spam and attacks it brings. I don't know about other folks in these positions, but if I were to read discussion like this, I'd roll my eyes and close the thread. If a random incoherent drunk ranter told me something was wrong with my ideas, I'd dismiss them without much hesitation.
> The way I see this particular discussion is: outside the tech bubble, regardless of the new facts in this article, people see yet another big name tech leader doing yet another unrelatable and clearly sleazy thing.
Because journalists know there is anti-tech sentiment among a segment of the population and so they stoke it. I don't know that much about this case, but a different story I've been following for a while now is the California Forever creation of a new city adjacent to the Bay Area. Pretty much every article written about it calls the city a "libertarian city" or "libertarian, billionaire dream". I'm involved in local planning conversations. I've read over their proposals and communications. They never, ever, mention anything about libertarianism. They're not proposing anything libertarian. They're working with existing incorporation laws; they're literally acting as a real-estate developer the same as any other suburban tract developer anywhere else in the US. But the press, desperate to get clicks on the story, bills it as some "libertarian city".
This "bubble" that you speak of is literally just a bubble created by journalists. I'm not saying that tech hasn't created some new, big, real problems nor that we shouldn't discuss these problems, but we need to recognize low-effort clickbait where we see it. This [1,2] article and thread talks about the reasons why, and it's not simple or straightforward, but at this point I consider most (not all) tech journalism to basically be tabloid journalism. It's meant specifically to drive clicks.
The only silly thing is some folks on HN think this site is somehow more high-brow than some general social media conversation on the news. It's the same social media as everywhere else, it's just more likely that the person talking is a software nerd, so the clickbait they fall for is different. My comment is my attempt as a community member to remind us to strive for something better. If we want to be more than just another social media site then we need to act like it. That means reading articles and not reacting to headlines, having good-faith conversations and not bringing strong priors into the conversation, and actually responding to the best interpretations of our peers' comments not just dunking on them.
[1]: https://asteriskmag.com/issues/06/debugging-tech-journalism
[2]: >>40201818
I'm loathe to reply because I know you don't want to engage anymore, but I think it's fair to reply to your reply on this point:
I'm sure you're right that the people involved in this will be defensive and roll their eyes, and I'm sympathetic to that human reaction, but it's also why society at large will continue along this path of thinking we suck.
If we roll our eyes at their legitimate criticism of all this sleazy stuff that is going on, then they're just right to criticize us.
And sure, "we shouldn't care if people at large think we suck because we roll our eyes at their criticism of our sleaziness" is a totally valid response to that. But I'm certainly not going to take up our cause against the inevitable backlash, in that case.
> This "bubble" that you speak of is literally just a bubble created by journalists.
I don't think so. I'm honestly sympathetic to how you've become convinced of that by the California Forever thing, which I agree has gotten a raw deal in the press. But I think this tech / SV / HN bubble is nonetheless a real thing. I work inside that bubble but live outside it. I spend a decent amount of time during my days reading and (often foolishly, like today) commenting on threads here.
But I spend a lot of my evenings and weekends with friends and family (in Colorado) who are very distant from our "scene". And I'm telling you, in my twenty year career, I have lived this evaluation from from "the internet is so awesome, google search is amazing, you know how to do software, that's so cool!" to "I don't know how you can stomach working in that industry". Sure, the media has had some impact on this, but we've also been super arrogant, have screwed up tons of stuff that is visible and salient to lots of people, and have seemed completely oblivious to this.
This episode is just one more example of that trend, and I think it's crazy to think "nah, this is all fine, nothing to see here".