Scarlett Johansson has a right to be upset. She claims OpenAI, an artificial intelligence company, is using her voice for its “conversational system” even though she declined to give the firm permission to do it.
According to the actress, the CEO of OpenAI asked her last year to contribute her voice to the system. She said no, but this month, two days before the company planned to demonstrate the new technology, the CEO asked her again.
“Before she could respond, OpenAI released a demo of its improved audio technology, featuring a voice called Sky,” the Washington Post reported. “Many argued the coquettish voice — which flirted with OpenAI employees in the presentation — bore an uncanny resemblance to Johansson’s character in the 2013 movie ‘Her,’ in which she performed the voice of a super-intelligent AI assistant.”
Sky is one of five voices OpenAI plans to use for its artificial intelligence. The company said it has stopped using that voice, which was chosen from more than 400 “voice actors.”
The CEO, Sam Altman, said the voice of Sky was never intended to resemble Johansson’s, and that the company had used another woman for that particular voice before it ever contacted her.
It’s pretty easy to punch holes in that balloon. If you were using another woman’s voice, why did you contact Johansson twice, eight months apart, to ask about using hers? And if you didn’t want people to think Sky sounded a lot like Johansson, why did the CEO send out a single-word tweet, “Her,” upon the release of the demo? That’s a pretty obvious reference to the movie, in which a guy falls for Johansson’s voice of an AI assistant.
These tech guys, they’re smarter than the rest of us. They’ve invented things that have changed the world, and there is every reason to believe the rapid development of artificial intelligence is the newest addition to that list.
But it’s hard to shake the feeling that their default mentality is stupid and selfish, along the lines of, “She said I can’t use her voice. Wanna bet?” Maybe the CEO thought he could ultimately change Johansson’s mind, or maybe he had his team create a voice that sounded a lot like hers just to show what the technology can do. It’s difficult to believe, though, that Sky’s Scarlett-sounding voice was just a coincidence.
The Post reported that federal copyright law has not been updated to protect people’s voices from AI systems without their consent. Researchers, meanwhile, have warned that AI voices should not be completely realistic, because that may fool some people into thinking they’re talking to a real person instead of a computer system. Congress and state legislatures need to set more limits on this stuff.
One thing’s for sure: Artificial intelligence is going to be good for lawyers.
The Post said OpenAI already faces a number of lawsuits by authors and news organizations that claim the company violated copyright law by using their work to train its artificial intelligence programs. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether the company has violated consumer protection laws.
Johansson, you may recall, bent the mighty Walt Disney Co. to her will three years ago with a lawsuit contending that the company breached its contract by putting her “Black Widow” film on the Disney+ streaming service the same day it released the movie in theaters.
Disney settled the lawsuit after Johansson didn’t back down. It seems certain that we’ll soon see how she fares in court against Sky.
