Johansson said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman previously reached out to her about voicing an AI for the company, but she declined. The company released a demo for its assistant with the “Sky” voice last week, our colleague Nick Robertson reported.
“When I heard the released demo, I 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,” she said in a statement to The Hill.
“Two days before the ChatGPT 4.0 demo was released, Mr. Altman contacted my agent, asking me to reconsider,” she continued. “Before we could connect, the system was out there.”
Altman appeared to acknowledge the similarity, posting a single word — “her” — on the social media platform X. Johansson played an artificial intelligence system that has a relationship with a human in the 2013 film “Her.”
The actor said she hired legal counsel to request OpenAI take down the “Sky” voice, which it “reluctantly” agreed to do.
OpenAI said in a statement Monday that the “Sky” voice is not a mimic of the Hollywood star.
“We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity’s distinctive voice,” the company wrote. “Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice.”
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
