Days before OpenAI demonstrated its new, flirty voice assistant last week, actress Scarlett Johansson called her agent, Sam Altman, the company’s chief executive, to ask him to consider licensing her voice for the virtual assistant.
It was the second request he had made to the actress in the past year, Ms. Johansson said in a statement on Monday, only to receive no response both times.
Despite those denials, Ms. Johansson said, OpenAI used a voice that sounded “like mine.” He hired a lawyer and asked OpenAI to stop using the voice called “Sky.”
OpenAI discontinued its publication “Heaven” at the weekend. The company reported in A Blog Sunday said “AI voices should not intentionally mimic a celebrity’s unique voice – Skye’s voice is not a reflection of Scarlett Johansson, but belongs to another professional actress using her own natural speaking voice.”
In the 2013 film “Her,” a lonely introvert named Theodore, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is seduced by a virtual assistant named Samantha, voiced by Ms. Johansson. Last week, Mr. Altman nodded to a unity Post on X With the single word “she”.
OpenAI said it could not share the names of its voice experts for privacy reasons. It said it worked with unidentified directors and producers to create the five voices: Breeze, Cove, Ember, Juniper and Skye. The vocals were recorded last summer in San Francisco.
Mrs. Johansson’s statement was reported earlier NPR’s Bobby Allin.
Ms Johansson is the latest high-profile figure to criticize OpenAI for using creative work without permission. In the past year, OpenAI has been sued for copyright infringement by authors, actors, and newspapers. Authors Guild of America And The New York Times sued OpenAI and its partner Microsoft.
This is a growing story. Check back for updates.
