In a recent announcement, the American artificial intelligence company OpenAI unveiled its latest model, “GPT-4o.” Among the five voice options of ChatGPT, one of the ChatGPT voice options named “Sky” (female bass) has drawn criticism for bearing a striking resemblance to the voice of Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson. OpenAI has stated that they will temporarily halt the release of the “Sky” voice option.
According to various media reports, even though the “Sky” voice option of ChatGPT has not been officially launched yet, a video from the product launch event and a teaser featuring OpenAI employees conversing with the Sky voice circulated online last week. The voice of Sky has been widely speculated to sound similar to the artificial intelligence virtual assistant that Johansson voiced in the 2013 science fiction film “Her.”
Scarlett Johansson released a statement on Monday night, expressing her shock, anger, and disbelief over OpenAI utilizing a synthetic voice in the newly introduced ChatGPT-4o chatbot that she finds “extremely similar” to her own voice, despite her declining the company’s voice request twice.
She disclosed that in September of last year, OpenAI founder Sam Altman had approached her to provide her voice for the ChatGPT 4.0 system, a request she turned down for “personal reasons.” Recently, just days before the new version of OpenAI was released, Altman called her agent again, urging her to reconsider granting permission to use her voice for the virtual assistant. Once again, she politely declined.
Johansson mentioned that she has enlisted legal representation to demand that OpenAI cease their infringement.
In a blog post published on Sunday, OpenAI clarified that the Sky voice was not intended to mimic Johansson’s voice but was based on the “natural voice of another professional actor,” citing privacy concerns for not revealing the actor’s identity.
On Monday, OpenAI once again posted on the social media platform X, stating, “We are working to suspend the use of Sky and address these issues.”
Apart from Sky, the other voice options include Breeze (female soprano), Juniper (female mezzo-soprano), Ember (male tenor), and Cove (male bass). OpenAI indicated that these voices were recorded last summer in San Francisco.
Over the past year, OpenAI has faced several copyright infringement lawsuits from authors, actors, and newspapers. In December of last year, The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, alleging that millions of articles published were used to train automated chatbots. In February of this year, the Authors Guild of America filed a collective lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the company of copyright infringement.
Scarlett Johansson was the highest-grossing actress globally in 2018 and 2019. The total box office revenue from the movies she starred in exceeded $14.3 billion worldwide, making her the ninth highest-grossing star in history. She also received a Tony Award for Best Actress in a drama, a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, two Academy Awards nominations, and five Golden Globe Award nominations.