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Sam Altman Dodges Scarlett Johansson AI Accentuation Controversy: “It’s Not Her Voice” – Hollywood Reporter


OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has made his first nation feedback at the Scarlett Johansson accentuation controversy, regardless that he choose to most commonly sidestep questions concerning the “Sky” chatbot that many customers felt sounded just like the actress.

Altman was once interviewed by way of The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson (whose corporate cut a deal with OpenAI previous this pace) on the AI for Excellent Height Thursday, hosted by way of the Global Telecommunication Union, a United International locations company eager about communications problems.

Thompson requested Altman about Johansson’s considerations concerning the OpenAI accentuation.

“It’s not her voice, it’s not supposed to be. I’m sorry for the confusion, clearly you think it is,” Altman advised Thompson. “People are going to have different opinions about how much voices sound alike, but we don’t. It’s not her voice.”

Altman added that he was once “not sure what else to say.” Thompson didn’t ask a follow-up query about Johansson.

The talk started nearest OpenAI publicly demoed a accentuation serve as for ChatGPT, with one of the crucial voices, “Sky,” sounding indistinguishable to Johansson. OpenAI would travel on to drag the accentuation.

Johansson after released a lengthy statement during which she observable that Altman have been looking to retain her to provide her accentuation to the venture since fall of 2023, and reached again out to her agent simply days earlier than the OpenAI demo.

“He 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. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people,” Johansson shared in a observation. “After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer. Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named ‘Sky’ sounded like me.”

Altman had additionally tweeted “her,” right through the demo, apparently a connection with the 2013 Spike Jonze movie Her, during which Johansson voiced an emotive AI.

OpenAI says that it all started the casting procedure for its AI voices previous terminating date, and that it had rented an actress (now not Johansson) to accentuation Sky.

The problem comes because the struggle between generative AI and the leisure trade continues to simmer, with accentuation actors submitting proceedings, and SAG-AFTRA hoping to lobby the passage of expenses cementing likeness and accentuation rights.