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Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by flexie on Thursday May 23, 2024 @04:21AM (#40452000)
It's not a clone. What is ethically murky about it?

You want Brad Pitt for your movie. He says no. You hire Benicio Del Toro because of the physical resemblence. Big deal.

Having seen "Her" and many other Scarlet Johansson movies, I didn't think for a second that GPT-4o sounded like her. On the contrary, I wondered why they had chosen the voice of a middle aged woman, and whether that was about being woke. It wasn't until social media went hysterical, I realized that the voices were sort of similar.

Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by pjc50 on Thursday May 23, 2024 @05:10AM (#40452357)
> I wondered why they had chosen the voice of a middle aged woman

AIs and automated systems, real and fictional, traditionally use women more than men to voice them. Apparently there was some research among all-male bomber crews that this "stood out", the B-58 was issued with some recordings of Joan Elms (https://archive.org/details/b58alertaudio ) and this was widely copied.

(obvious media exception: HAL)

Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by column on Thursday May 23, 2024 @04:31AM (#40452075)
If it's a sequel and Brad Pitt was in the first movie and you use trickery to make people think he's in the second movie, there's a case. See Crispin Glover, the dad from Back to the future, which was NOT the upside-down dad in BTTF2. They settled for 760k USD.
Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by rowanG077 on Thursday May 23, 2024 @04:41AM (#40452158)
Openai never claimed it was Scarlett Johansson though. They didn't trick anyone.
Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by popalchemist on Thursday May 23, 2024 @04:54AM (#40452251)
Spielberg & co never claimed Glover was in BTTF 2. The replacement actor is credited. However they heavily implied that Glover came back, by approximating his appearance with prosthetics, preventing his face from being seen up close, and having the replacement actor mimic Glover's voice.

Glover sued and won.

Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by egeozcan on Thursday May 23, 2024 @05:16AM (#40452401)
> they heavily implied that Glover came back, by approximating his appearance with prosthetics, preventing his face from being seen up close, and having the replacement actor mimic Glover's voice

Do you think OpenAI did something similar here? In your case there is some expectation from the first movie, OpenAI doesn't have something similar. I'm really for people getting credit for their work/assets and I would be on the individual's side against the bigtech, but I think this case OpenAI and SJ have at hand already is on the path to set a wrong precedent, regardless of if any and which of them wins.

Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by lupire on Thursday May 23, 2024 @10:14AM (#40455025)
The movie "Her", which Sam Altman claimed ChatGPT was in some sense connected to, came first.
Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by rowanG077 on Thursday May 23, 2024 @01:54PM (#40457776)
But there is a connection to it. It's about an AI assistant which is what openAI is releasing. Disregarding Scarlett Johansson completely and it makes total sense Sam Altman made that tweet.
Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by kombookcha on Thursday May 23, 2024 @04:51AM (#40452233)
Sam tweeting "Her" is a clear as daylight indication that they are deliberately trying to associate the voice with ScarJo's performance.

They're squarely in the zone with knockoff products deliberately aping the branding of the real thing.

"Dr Peppy isn't a trick to piggyback on Dr Pepper, it's a legally distinct brand!" might give you enough of a fig leaf in court with a good lawyer, but it's very obvious what kind of company you're running to anybody paying attention.

Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by z7 on Thursday May 23, 2024 @04:54AM (#40452252)
Or he tweeted 'her' to compare his product with the movie AI's conversational abilities. It just depends on how one subjectively interprets a single syllable.
Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by kombookcha on Thursday May 23, 2024 @05:07AM (#40452335)
That would be a rather weird and boneheaded thing to do, when you've already twice approached said AI's voice actor and been rejected.

There are any number of human-sounding movie AI's, but apparently only one whose actor has specifically and repeatedly rejected this association.

Does he keep getting into ethical hot water because he's a reckless fool, or because he doesn't really care about ethics at all, despite all the theatre?

Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by MengerSponge on Thursday May 23, 2024 @06:42AM (#40453017)
¿Por qué no los dos?
Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by throwaway115 on Thursday May 23, 2024 @05:06AM (#40452333)
There are many many many movies with conversational AIs. Why that one?
Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by sebzim4500 on Thursday May 23, 2024 @05:37AM (#40452548)
'Her' is clearly the most similar to that demo, even ignoring the fact that they have slightly similar voices.

Of the films I've seen anyway.

Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by CRConrad on Friday May 24, 2024 @02:53AM (#40463592)
Not explicitly, no. They just heavily implied it.

Typical sleazy open AI / Sam Altman behaviour, AFAICS.

Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by blitzar on Thursday May 23, 2024 @04:36AM (#40452117)
You then tweet out, "look its Brad Pitt in my movie".
Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by z7 on Thursday May 23, 2024 @04:52AM (#40452237)
They never claimed it was Scarlett Johansson's voice though.
Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by magic123_ on Thursday May 23, 2024 @05:53AM (#40452669)
If the objective is to absolutely always avoid reading between the lines, then yes you're correct.
Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by johnbellone on Thursday May 23, 2024 @07:15AM (#40453239)
In public, other than Sam’s tweet.

Do you think nobody said anything like this in an email or Slack?

Re:OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson's Voice by zemo on Thursday May 23, 2024 @09:42AM (#40454633)
> I wondered why they had chosen the voice of a middle aged woman, and whether that was about being woke

really weird line of reasoning. Siri, Alexa, Google Home… etc.