Scarlett Johansson, who played “Black Widow” in the Avengers, rejected providing her voice to be used in the ChatGPT chatbot program by OpenAI, but the company still imitated her voice. Recently, Scarlett was shocked and angry when she discovered this.
According to reports from “People” and “Variety,” on the 20th, Scarlett Johansson released a statement saying that Sam Altman, CEO of the American artificial intelligence company OpenAI, invited her to use her voice in the new ChatGPT 4.0 chatbot to meet the demands of AI consumers. Despite her refusal of the proposal, nine months later she heard a chatbot whose voice sounded just like hers, leaving her shocked and infuriated.
“My friends, family, and the public have all noticed that the voice named ‘Sky’ in the latest system sounds a lot like mine,” Scarlett said. She expressed feeling “shocked, angry, and incredulous” upon hearing it, as even her close friends and the news media couldn’t tell the difference, leading her to believe it was intentional on Altman’s part.
Scarlett mentioned that Altman’s use of the word “she” on X social media platform was a deliberate suggestion of the similarity to her voice. She pointed out that two days before the release of the ChatGPT 4.0 Demo version, Altman contacted her agent to reconsider his proposal.
Following the incident, Scarlett took legal action and sent two letters to Altman demanding a detailed explanation of how the voice of “Sky” was created. “When we are all striving to combat deepfakes (AI), issues concerning protecting our own image, work, and identity should be clear,” she said. She also expressed the expectation for this issue to be resolved transparently and openly, with appropriate legislation to safeguard individual rights.
Subsequently, OpenAI removed the voice of “Sky,” with the company stating in a statement to “Variety”: “‘Sky’s’ voice does not belong to Scarlett Johansson, nor did we ever intend to imitate her voice. Before contacting Ms. Johansson, we had already chosen the voice actor for ‘Sky.’ In order to respect Ms. Johansson, we have suspended the use of ‘Sky’s’ voice in the product. We apologize for not communicating better with Ms. Johansson.”
OpenAI first announced the ChatGPT voice function in September 2023. In November, the company declared that the feature would be provided free of charge to all users. According to the Associated Press, Chat GPT 4.0 has not yet been publicly released, with plans for it to be launched in the coming weeks or months.