According to PANews, Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson has issued a strong statement, accusing OpenAI of imitating her unique tone after she refused to provide her voice for ChatGPT. Last week, OpenAI showcased a synthetic voice that was strikingly similar to Johansson's AI assistant character in the sci-fi movie 'Her', but abruptly disabled this new voice over the weekend.
Before OpenAI released its latest AI model GPT-4o and launched a more conversational ChatGPT mode, company founder Sam Altman sparked a series of rumors, stating that the company would launch a virtual assistant similar to the AI operating system voiceover in the 2013 romantic drama 'Her', which sounded like Scarlett Johansson. He liked a user's post on the X social platform, indicating that he was watching the movie to prepare for OpenAI's spring update event, and mentioned the word 'her' in a tweet during the event. One of the AI-generated voices used in the event was called 'Sky', which some users thought was similar to Scarlett Johansson's voice in 'Her'. However, as of 2:33 a.m. Eastern Time on May 19, OpenAI posted a statement on the X social platform, revealing that the company was 'temporarily suspending the use of Sky' and answering questions about their choice of ChatGPT voice.
Later that day, Eastern Time, Scarlett Johansson's representative issued a statement to several media outlets, including NPR, publicly criticizing OpenAI and especially Sam Altman, accusing them of contacting her nine months ago to provide her voice, which she refused. The statement said that Johansson was 'shocked, angry, and incredulous' at Altman's misuse of her voice, to the point that her closest friends and news agencies could not distinguish the difference. According to the statement issued to NPR and other media, Johansson said she had to hire a lawyer, who wrote to Altman and OpenAI, and this communication led to the suspension and removal of the Sky voice.
