zlacker

He kind of ruined that argument when he tweeted “Her” alongside the video. Pretty clearly drawing a line between the voice and Johansson’s portrayal in the movie.

Incredible, really. It would have been so easy to just… not do that.

>>afavou+(OP)
That makes it weird, but it doesn't (itself) mean they literally used her voice. It just means they were inspired by the movie. It's not illegal to be weird.

>>afavou+(OP)
More likely he was drawing a line between the fictional AI assistant, and their real, actualised assistant.

>>afavou+(OP)
He said/X-ed the quiet part loud.

>>afavou+(OP)
> He kind of ruined that argument when he tweeted "Her"

Why? The grandparent is not saying it's coincidence. Why is it not okay to hire someone who has a voice similar to celebrity X who you intentionally want to immitate? I mean if you don't actually mislead people to believe that your immitation is actually X - which would be obviously problematic?

>>yreg+b2
He strongly implied that it wasn’t an imitation.

>>andrew+51
The founding principle of Silicon Valley.

>>andrew+51
Perpetual benefit of the doubt given for every implication as though it’s happening in a vacuum is how humanity keeps putting megalomaniacs and sociopaths into positions of power and influence.

It’s really a shame.

>>TylerE+o2
We are talking about miohtama's argument, not Sam Altman.

I don't believe Sam Altman, but I am interested in the general “is it legal/ethical to immitate something uncopyrightable” argument.

>>andrew+51
I think it’s less the voice and more about how they went about it. They were apparently in negotiations with her and they fell apart. Then they tried to resume negotiations with her two days before the new model launched.

If it was just an actor, it might be a case of inspiration gone awry. But this particular actor sued Disney in 2021 after making a lot of movies and a lot of money making movies for them.

Deliberately poking a fight with a litigation happy actor is weird. Most weird is really benign. But this is the kind of weird that forces out of court settlements. It’s reckless.

Edit - mistyped the date as 2001. Changed to 2021.

>>throwa+U2
If we're going to pillory Sam Altman, it's important to do it for the right reasons. That was not a good reason. I really should not need to defend this principle.

>>hluska+B4
Oh, sure. There's plenty of other ways OpenAI have been boneheaded. I'm just saying the mere fact of referencing "Her" implies very little.

>>andrew+D4
What reason do you suggest is more appropriate to “pillory Sam Altman”

>>afavou+(OP)
Let's take a parallel situation from around 20 years ago, and see how you feel about it. I'm going back that far as a reminder of what was long considered OK, before AI.

In the movie The Seed of Chucky, Britney Spears gets killed. You can watch the clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3kCg5o0cHA. It is very clearly Britney Spears.

Except Britney Spears was not hired for the role. They hired a Britney Spears impersonator for the scene. They did everything that they could to make it look like Britney, and think it was Britney. But it really wasn't.

Do you think that Britney should have sued the Chucky franchise for that? If so, should Elvis Presly's estate also sue all of the Elvis Presly impersonators out there? Where do you draw the line? And if not, where do you draw the line between what happened in Chucky, and what happened here?

I really don't see a line between now having someone who sounded like the actress, and then tweeting the name of one of her movies, and what happened 20 years ago with Chucky killing someone who looked like Britney, then showing a license plate saying "BRITNEY1", and THEN saying, "Whoops I did it again." (The title of her most famous song at the time.) If anything, the movie was more egregious.

>>afavou+(OP)
I imagine he feels invincible at this point and gets off on displaying power.

>>afavou+(OP)
Her was a movie with an AI assistant who talked like a normal human rather than an intentionally clunky "bleep blorp" dialect that lots of other movies go with. They even make fun of this in the movie when he asks her to read an email using a classic voice prompt, and she responds pretending to be a classic AI assistant.

The new voice2voice from OpenAI allows for a conversational dialect, most prominently demonstrated in pop culture by the movie Her. Sam's tweet makes perfect sense in that context.

Sky's voice has been the default voice in voice2voice for almost a year now, and no one has made a connection to the Her voice until it started acting more conversational. It seems pretty obvious that OpenAI was looking for a more conversational assistant, likely inspired by the movie Her, and it would have been cool if the actress had helped make that happen, but she didn't, and here we are.

Also Juniper has always been the superior voice model. I just now realized that one of my custom GPTs kept having this annoying bug where the voice kept switching from Juniper to Sky, and that seems to be resolved now that Sky got removed.

>>btilly+96
I don't think this is an apples-to-apples comparison.

The movie producers didn't produce a simulation of Britney's voice and attempt to sell access to it.

However you feel about an probably-unapproved celebrity cameo in a movie, it's not the same thing as selling the ability to impersonate that celebrity's voice to anyone willing to pay, in perpetuity.

>>btilly+96
This kind of de minimis artistic use is what fair use was invented for, and god knows they licensed her likeness regardless.

>>afavou+(OP)
He knew there would be blowback, he just didn’t care. Look at how many people are talking about it.

>>afavou+(OP)
Given:

1. The plot of "Her" (guy falls in love with synthesized voice, played by Johansson)

2. Altman's affinity for the film (the article says he's called it his "favorite movie")

Reaching out to Johansson about cloning her voice, then doing so without permission feels like Altman is creeping on her.

The sooner this bubble pops, the better.

>>andrew+p5
That's a fair statement if you take the "Her" post out-of-context and without the corroborating retort from ScarJo and his history. Which, of course, is not possible and also pretty boneheaded itself.

This isn't some college kid with an idea and too much passion.

>>afavou+(OP)
This is one of those “accuse a diver of being a paedophile” moments. Who knew Sam is a creep with a Scarlet Johansson obsession cooking up a voice model just like her on compute daddy Satya paid for (but books as revenue, 2000 dotcom style).

>>SrslyJ+A7
If you go to Vegas, you can go to a wedding officiated by someone who looks like, sounds like, and acts like Elvis Presly. This is available to anyone. You can get the same actor to do the same simulation for another purpose if you're willing to pay for it.

The biggest difference that I see is that technology has made the simulation cheaper and easier.

>>andrew+51
Legally they don’t need to have literally used her voice to have broken the law, never mind violating many people’s basic sense of what’s right and wrong.

>>afavou+(OP)
Had the film Her used someone else as the AI voice that sounded like Johansson would there be complaints about the film using a voice that sounded like Johansson? Does it matter if producers try to hire her first? Because only Johansson has that voice? Johansson does not visually show up the film Her and if not for the film credits could the voice in that film be used to use identity her from hundreds millions of other possible women? ( I had no idea who did the voice acting and would never had known if not for this news.) Now if the owners of the film Her were to request OpenAI licence a character from their film (like licencing say C3P0 character from Disney) maybe there would be a case but an actor claiming they own a natural human "voice" I think is a stretch when there are thousands of people with similar voices. And she is visually never in the film that made that AI voice famous so it could be anyone in that film with a similar voice.

>>px43+w6
> Sky's voice has been the default voice in voice2voice for almost a year now, and no one has made a connection to the Her voice until it started acting more conversational.

No.[1]

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/177v8wz/i_have_a_r...

>>btilly+96
> Seed of Chucky, the off-the-wall fifth installment of Don Mancini's Child's Play franchise, was forced to include a special disclaimer about pop superstar Britney Spears

> This scene was included in promotional spots for the film, most specifically Seed of Chucky's trailer, but the distributing company associated with the film, Focus Features, made the decision to significantly cut the scene down and add a disclaimer. The disclaimer that ran with the promotional spot, which was altered to only show a brief glimpse of Ariqat as Spears, stated: "Britney Spears does not appear in this film."

https://screenrant.com/seed-of-chucky-movie-promos-britney-s...

>>btilly+R8
And these people are known as "Elvis Presley impersonators." They don't pretend to be some obscure person you've never heard of, for very obvious reasons.

The biggest difference here is obviously one of scale. I don't think ScarJo would be threatening to sue you, the individual, if you did a voice impression of her for a talent show or a friends wedding.

>>btilly+96
> If so, should Elvis Presly's estate also sue all of the Elvis Presly impersonators out there?

Generally the "Right to Publicity" laws are clear about expiring at death. It's not like copyright.

>>yreg+b2
Alright then, the solution is simple. All he has to do is name the actress that OpenAI -did- hire for the voice work, right? That would put any doubt to rest.

>>jrflow+Q5
Most of the other ones in this thread?

>>llamai+Wa
They don't? Because if it's true that they used a sound-alike voice actress for the actual model, I don't see how any reasonable complaint about that could stand. You can't ban people from voice-acting who have similar voices to other celebrities. There needs to be something more to it.

>>yreg+j4
Altman tweeted the name of a film Johansson stared in in association with this launch.

>>SrslyJ+48
What bubble? This isn't crypto. Have you used these tools? They aren't going anywhere.

>>czl+Ya
I don't know about complaints but Ms. Johansson might be able to win a civil suit in that hypothetical situation. It would depend on the facts of the particular case, particularly any evidence that the defendants acted in bad faith. I think a lot of technologists don't understand how burden of proof works in civil trials, or that there is no presumption of "innocence".

>>couchd+3r
There could be a bubble in terms of stock valuation, but the tools are definitely going to stay.

This could be kinda like the dot com bubble -- the Internet went on to become BIG, but the companies just went bust... (and the ones that strive are probably not well known)

>>andrew+Zn
The something more is intent.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

>>hnfong+6w
I finally caved and started using GPTs daily a couple of days ago.

I went to ask the Internet "best AI tools", and there's no clear consensus:

Various Redditors go on to suggest "here's 100 you might like to try".

So there's clearly a bubble, thousands of startups all trying for similar things.

I am personally looking forward to try Wolfram GPT:

https://www.wolfram.com/wolfram-plugin-chatgpt/

>>andrew+Zn
> You can't ban people from voice-acting who have similar voices to other celebrities

Actually, you probably can.[0]

[0] https://casetext.com/case/waits-v-frito-lay-inc

Edit: Added the context for the reply

>>btilly+96
There is a distinction between the image of a celebrity and their voice. The image of a celebrity is usually pretty cut and dried, it’s them, or obviously intended to be them. If the use of their image isn’t meant to be satirical, it’s problematic. The Crispin Glover/Back to the Future 2 case is a good example of non-satirical use that was problematic. Zemeckis used previous footage of Glover, plus used facial molds of Glover to craft prosthetics for another actor.

Voices…are usually not so distinctive. However, certain voices are very distinct—Tom Waits, Miley Cyrus, James Earl Jones, Matt Berry. Those voices are pretty distinctively those people and simulating their voices it would be obvious who you are simulating. Other celebrity voices are much more generic. Scarlett fits into this with a pretty generic female voice with a faint NY/NJ accent.

Open AI screwed up by taking a generic voice and making it specific to the celebrity by reference and by actually pursuing the actor for the use of their voice.

>>Captai+eU
Well that's... concerning? I'm not sure I disagree with the decision there but to apply it any more widely would be a problem.

>>andrew+6A1
It's such a huge problem that it's only brought up in the context of someone (probably) doing exactly what it's designed to prevent... By some miracle, this actually isn't used to outlaw satire or put Elvis impersonators out of work. It's used to prevent people from implying endorsement where none exists.

>>hnfong+6w
It's an exuberance bubble. Every tech company on earth is racing to "do something with AI" because all of their competitors are trying to "do something with AI" and they don't want to be left out of the excitement. The excitement and exuberance will inevitably cool, and then a new thing will emerge and they'll all race to "do something with that new thing."

>>sshine+zQ
I understand there's way too much out there, but I think there is at least some clarity about the landscape at present.

ChatGPT is currently king of the mountain. That could change, but right now that's how it is.

Google's Gemini and Facebook's Llama 3 are clearly in a tier below. The 100s of tools you are seeing are various mixed and matched technologies that also belong in this tier.

Claude (massive context) and Mistral/Mixtral (decent with no censoring/guard rails) are interesting for special cases. And if you're determined and want to put in the effort, you can experiment or self-host and perhaps come up with some capabilities that do something special that suits a use case or something you want to optimize for (although not everyone has time for that).

So I wouldn't say it's just all this one big swirl of confusion and therefore a bubble and due to come crashing down. There's wheat, there's chaff, there's rhyme and reason.

>>nradov+rv
Civil trails are based on a preponderance of evidence (aka 50%) burden of proof standard (vs beyond reasonable doubt standard in criminal trails).

I can see a civil judge or jury being given evidence showing very few listeners think the voices match in _blind voice tests_.

Here for example you can listen to the voices side by side:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1cwy6wz/comment/l4...

And here is voice of another actress ( Rashida Jones ):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=385414AVZcA

This test is not blind but YOU tell me which you think is similar to the openAI sky voice? And what does that tell you about likely court result for Johansson? And having reached this conclusion yourself would you now think the other actress Rashida Jones is entitled to compensation based on this similarly test? Because there are no other women with similar voices?

>>glenst+vM1
> ChatGPT is currently king of the mountain.

This is completely false. Claude Opus is significantly better than GPT 4.

> Mistral/Mixtral (decent with no censoring/guard rails)

These models have been heavily censored, I'm not sure what you're talking about. Community efforts like Dolphin to fine-tune Mixtral have some success, but no, Karen is definitely still hard at work in France, ensuring that Mistral AI's models don't offend anyone's precious fee-fees.

>>caeril+9j2
I think you're missing the forest for the trees here. You're right that Claude Opus is better, which I hadn't known, but I think in your zeal to make that point you're completely forgetting what my comment was about.

It's nevertheless true that there is a coherent landscape of better and worse models, and Chat GPT really does have separation from the other models as I mentioned above. I even mentioned that ChatGPTs position would be subject to change. My understanding is that this most recent version of Claude has been out and about in the wild for perhaps 2 months.

I feel like with even a little bit of charitable interpretation you could read my comment in a way that accounts for the emergence of such a thing as a new and improved model of Claude. So I appreciate your correction but it's hard to see how it amounts to anything more than a drive-by cheap shot that's unrelated to the point I'm making.

>>SrslyJ+48
Oh, the irony. Actors are afraid of being digitalized and used without their content, and the first B2C AI company digitalizes a soundalike of the voice of one of the first 3 AI movies, without her consent…

>>couchd+3r
Maybe they aren't going anywhere, but they sure af ought to.

>>FireBe+Vm
Jennifer Tilly? ;-)

(Can't for the life of me recall if she sounds anything like Johansson; just putting her forward to tease her relative here. (Who is in the wrong in his arguments above.))