OpenAI responds after Scarlett Johansson 'shocked' with voice 'similar' to hers

Hollywood actor Scarlett Johananson has said she was shocked angered and in disbelief after Microsoftbacked startup OpenAI launched an Artificial Intelligence personal assistant voice that was eerily similar to her own voiceJohanssons statement was released hours after Sam Altmanfounded tech company said it was taking down the voice it had dubbed as SkyOpenAI had last week unveiled a new version of its flagship ChatGPT chatbot which can read text aloud to users and can receive and respond to voice commands images and videosSeveral people compared the similarities between the chatbots tone with that of Johanssons in the 2013 film Her Directed by Spike Jonze the movie is about a man who develops a close relationship with an advanced piece of software The Operating System takes the persona of a female and calls herself Samantha In the film the Academy award nominated Scarlett Johansson is the voice of SamanthaArtificial intelligence company OpenAI in a blog post on Monday wrote the process in which it had chosen the voices used by the ChatGPT stating that worked with awardwinning casting and directing professionals to narrow down over 400 submissions before selecting five voices Apart from Sky the other voices debuted by OpenAI are dubbed Breeze Cove Ember and JuniperAccording to US media outlet NPR Johanssons legal team has sent OpenAI two letters asking the company how it had developed the Sky voiceJohansson said that nine months ago Altman had approached her proposing that she allow her voice to be licensed for the new ChatGPT voice assistant as he thought it would comforting to people who are uneasy with AI technologyAfter much consideration and for personal reasons I declined the offer Johansson said in her statement shared with NPRThe actor said that just two days before the new ChatGPT was unveiled Altman again reached out to Johanssons team urging her to reconsider but before she and Altman could connect the company publicly announced its new product with a voice that she says appears to have copied her likenessI was shocked angered and in disbelief that Mr Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference Johansson saidFollowing this OpenAI in a statement on the companys blog said We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebritys distinctive voiceSkys voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice the tech company saidThe tech company founder Altman further said that it has paused using Skys voiceIn a statement to US media outlet NPR Altman wrote We cast the voice actor behind Skys voice before any outreach to Ms Johansson Out of respect for Ms Johansson we have paused using Skys voice in our products We are sorry to Ms Johansson that we didnt communicate betterMeanwhile OpenAI according to a report in the Washington Post is facing a wave of lawsuits by authors including Game of Thrones writer George RR Martin and news organizations including the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune which allege the company violated copyright law by using their content to train its AI modelsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever