Scarlett Johansson slams ChatGPT creators for voice ‘eerily similar’ to her own

She said OpenAI “reluctantly” agreed to remove the Sky voice after she hired lawyers who wrote Altman letters asking about the company’s process for creating the voice.

San Francisco-based OpenAI did not comment further on why it still decided to pause Sky’s use but instead released a statement confirming it had “heard questions” about how it selects the lifelike audio options available for its flagship artificial intelligence chatbot.

“We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity’s distinctive voice — Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice,” the company wrote. It said it could not share the name of its voice actors for privacy reasons.

Johansson was a vocal supporter of the long-running SAG-AFTRA strike, which ended in November last year. One of the key sticking points between the unions and the studios was regulations surrounding the use of artificial intelligence, something Johansson touched on in her statement.

“In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity,” said the Academy Award nominee.

“I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected.”

OpenAI first rolled out voice capabilities for ChatGPT, which included the five different voices, in September, allowing users to engage in back-to-forth conversation with the AI assistant. “Voice Mode” was originally just available to paid subscribers, but in November, OpenAI announced that the feature would become free for all users with the mobile app.

ChatGPT’s interactions are becoming more and more sophisticated. Last week, OpenAI said the latest update to its generative AI model can mimic human cadences in its verbal responses and can even try to detect people’s moods.