OpenAI CEO Sam Altman issued a public apology on Tuesday to actress Scarlett Johansson after she expressed shock over a new synthetic voice released by the company, which she claimed sounded “eerily similar” to her own.
The controversy centers around “Sky,” one of several new voices introduced by OpenAI with its advanced GPT-4o artificial intelligence technology. Sky’s voice, which was demonstrated to be flirtatious and humorous, drew comparisons to the AI character voiced by Johansson in the 2013 film “Her.”
Altman has previously cited “Her,” directed by Spike Jonze, as an inspiration for his vision of future AI interactions. His recent one-word post on X (formerly Twitter), simply saying “her,” further fueled these comparisons.
Johansson released a statement on Monday expressing her outrage, stating she was “shocked, angered, and in disbelief” that Altman would choose a voice so similar to hers. She revealed that Altman had approached her in September to potentially collaborate on creating a synthetic voice, suggesting it might help people feel more comfortable interacting with AI.
In response, OpenAI announced on X that it was working to “pause” the use of Sky’s voice. A company blog post clarified that Sky’s voice was not an imitation of Johansson’s but was provided by a different professional actress using her natural speaking voice.
In a statement shared with AFP on Tuesday, Altman said the voice actor behind Sky was cast before any outreach to Johansson. “Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky’s voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better.”
The blog post explained that OpenAI collaborated with professional voice actors to develop synthetic voices named Breeze, Cove, Ember, Juniper, and Sky. The company began casting voice actors in early 2023, carefully selecting each voice based on qualities like timelessness and trustworthiness. The final actors recorded their parts in San Francisco during June and July, and the voices were launched in ChatGPT on September 25, 2023.
OpenAI emphasized that the names of the voice talents would remain confidential to protect their privacy. “We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity’s distinctive voice,” the company stated.
This incident comes amid broader industry caution around overly humanizing AI. Microsoft Vice President Yusuf Mehdi, whose company partners with OpenAI, told AFP that AI should not be seen as either male or female but as a “unique entity.” “It should not be human. It shouldn’t breathe. You should be able to… understand (it) is AI,” he said.
Recently, OpenAI also announced it had disbanded a team focused on mitigating long-term AI risks. The “superalignment” group was integrated into other projects and research within the company, following the departures of co-founder Ilya Sutskever and team co-leader Jan Leike last week.
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