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
It’s human nature: people see others achieve what they cannot, and try to pull them down. You see this wrt Musk on this site a lot, too.

>>ein0p+0n2
It has nothing to do with this. There are many successful people and businesses that I admire, and a number of notable examples of those I do not. The two your comment mentions are simply part of that latter group. I think for good reason. (But of course I would think that...)

>>sander+9o2
I’m not talking about you specifically here. What you’re saying could be true for you, and not true for the community as a whole. With the benefit of experience, I can tell for certain there’s (on average) a strong undercurrent of jealousy against people perceived as overly ambitious, particularly if they are successful in their ambitions. This is not specific to this site, of course, or even to the tech community in general.

>>ein0p+Du2
You're right that it could be the case. But I disagree that it is likely to be, in this specific case, and the other specific case you cited.

I think many people distrust and dislike Altman and Musk in particular because of their own specific behavior.

Some people are hated because people are just jealous, but other people use that as an umbrella excuse to deflect blowback from their behavior that they entirely deserve. I believe this is one of those latter cases.

>>sander+Rw2
But you don’t even know what their behavior really is. What you do know is the narrative created by fake news media mostly. At best it’s lies by omission, at worst - outright smears and fabrications. Idk much about Altman, but people who worked with Musk hold him in very high regard and say he’s the real deal. Yet if you go by the narratives you’d think the exact opposite

>>ein0p+tx2
Ah yes, the real deal.

How's that self driving coming along?

How about the Cybertruck being a few years late?

How about the low cost car being cancelled?

How about the you have all the hardware you need - oh wait oopsie you need to pay us thousands more

How about the taking Tesla private tweet?

How about the repeatedly and flagrantly violating government contracts that are basically his company's only revenue because he's too powerful for consequences?

How about...

Definitely the real deal.

>>Repuls+dG3
Self driving is actually coming along better than I thought it would. Version 12 behaves like a human driver.

The real source of your frustration though is that he does not fully subscribe to the neoliberal dogma and lets millions of others to say whatever they like. Totalitarian left can’t handle that, it’s a visceral reaction