Hollywood Actress Scarlett Johansson has expressed shock and anger after OpenAI released a chatbot that she claims has a voice that is “eerily similar” to her own, BBC reported.
Johansson was reportedly surprised and upset by this development.
According to Scarlett Johansson, she had previously declined an offer from OpenAI to provide the voice for their new chatbot.
However, when the chatbot called “Sky” was released last week, many commentators noted that its tone and voice sounded remarkably similar to Johansson’s voice from her 2013 film “Her”.
While OpenAI claimed they would remove the voice and insisted it was not meant to be an imitation, Johansson accused the company and its founder Sam Altman of deliberately copying her voice, in a statement obtained by the BBC.
“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine,” she wrote.
She was approached by Mr Altman about voicing the new chatbot in September.
“[Mr Altman] told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI,” Johansson wrote.
“I eventually rejected the offer for personal reasons,” she said.
Scarlett Johansson stated that just two days before the release of the Sky chatbot, Altman had contacted her agent, urging her to reconsider her initial refusal to cooperate with the company on the project.
Johansson added that she has been forced to hire lawyers to address this issue, and has sent two legal letters to the company, demanding clarity on how they were able to create a voice for their chatbot that sounds so similar to her own.
The actress emphasized that in an era where deepfakes and the protection of one’s identity are major concerns, she believes these are questions that deserve complete transparency and clarity from OpenAI.
The company has yet to comment on this incident.
On Monday, OpenAI said that it was not an ‘imitation of a star’.
“We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity’s distinctive voice,” it said in a blog post.
Instead, the company claims the five voices utilized were sampled from voice actors that OpenAI had partnered with.
Johansson’s legal threats against OpenAI come as the company is facing several impending lawsuits.
ut in a statement on Monday, OpenAI said: “We’ve heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky. We are working to pause the use of Sky while we address them.”
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