Elon Musk weighs into Scarlett Johansson’s beef with Sam Altman’s ChatGPT after OpenAI used a voice that was ‘eerily similar’ to hers
Elon Musk addressed Scarlett Johansson’s ongoing feud with Sam Altman’s ChatGPT, comparing it to the Netflix thriller Black Mirror.
The Academy Award-nominated actress, 39, claims that after she turned down a deal to let the company use her voice for the new app, they went ahead and used a voice indistinguishable from hers.
Altman later said that “Sky” is not Johansson and said his office had contacted her representatives, while also admitting that he “could have communicated better.”
While both Johansson and Altman debunked the issue, Tesla CEO Musk, 52, offered his own opinion on the matter.
X boss Elon Musk has responded to the recent feud between Scarlett Johansson and Sam Altman after his company took her voice without permission for a new ChatGPT project
In response to an X user’s tweet about Johansson’s statement, the Space X founder said wrote‘Black Mirror irl (again),’ a dystopian TV series on Netflix that explores the far-reaching, terrible consequences that technology can have on the future.
Musk has a longstanding rivalry with Altman and has long criticized the company after leaving his position as founder of OpenAI in 2018.
Johansson has long been synonymous with an AI “voice” thanks to her role as Joaquin Phoenix’s artificially intelligent romantic partner in the 2013 film Her.
Scarlett Johansson, 39, says she was ‘shocked, angry and in disbelief’ as she claims company OpenAI recorded her voice without her consent for a new ChatGPT project
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, pictured here, said: “We apologize Ms. Johansson for not communicating better.”
Altman even tweeted the word “her” around the time Sky launched.
The voice heard on Sky is another professional actress, Altman previously said. In his latest statement, he confirmed that ChatGPT has “stopped using Sky’s voice in our products” following a response to Johansson’s statement.
“We apologize to Ms. Johansson for not communicating better,” the statement concluded.
“Sky’s voice is not Scarlett Johansson’s, and it was never intended to be like hers. We cast the voice actor behind the voice of Sky before reaching Ms. Johansson,” Altman also said.
Johansson said in her statement that Altman approached her last September and offered to hire her as a ChatGPT voice – an offer she declined.
“Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noticed how much the latest system called ‘Sky’ looked like me,” she said.
“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angry, and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so uncannily similar to mine that my closest friends and news media couldn’t hear the difference.”
OpenAI showed off its latest AI model last week, called GPT-4o, with audio capabilities that let users talk to the chatbot and get real-time responses, marking a significant advance in more realistic-sounding AI conversations.
The Academy Award-nominated actress released a statement to NPR through her publicist Marcel Pariseau, explaining the matter in detail on Monday.
In 2013, Johansson voiced Samantha, a virtual assistant to a lonely man (L, Joaquin Phoenix), in Spike Jonze’s sci-fi romantic drama Her, which received critical acclaim and earned $48.3 million at the worldwide box office.
In November 2023, when Altman was temporarily kicked out of his own company, a statement said his dismissal was due to his “failure to [being] consistently candid in his communications.’ Altman returned to ChatGPT as CEO days after being fired.
The voice that Johansson claims is related to hers, titled “Sky,” was one of five voices that OpenAI made available last fall, according to The Washington Post, who added that the company has suspended the use of voice from Sunday.
The company said in a blog post that it had trained voices for the audio option of its evolving AI program, and compensated voice actors with “above average rates” for their work in the program.
Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI: A Timeline
September 2023: Scarlett Johansson said Sam Altman tried to hire her to become the voice of the ChatGPT 4.0 system.
The Lost in Translation star turned down the offer.
May 11, 2024: Johansson said that Altman contacted her representatives two days before the release of the product’s demo, asking them to reconsider her licensing of her voice.
The product was released before an agreement was reached.
May 13, 2024: Johansson said that “friends, family and the general public” commented on how much the ChatGPT system called Sky resembled her.
The actress said she was shocked that Atlman would pursue a voice that sounded so uncannily similar to hers.
May 20, 2024: Following Johansson’s statement, Altman confirmed that OpenAI has ‘paused’ the use of Sky’s voice.
ChatGPT users found some interactions with Sky to be bizarrely flirty. In a video posted by OpenAI, a female ChatGPT voice compliments a company employee for “wearing an OpenAI hoodie.”
In another, the chatbot says, “Oh stop it, you’re making me blush,” after being told it’s great.
“This is clearly programmed to feed guys’ egos,” The Daily Show senior correspondent Desi Lydic said in a segment last week. “You can really tell that a man built this technology.”
OpenAI first rolled out voice capabilities for ChatGPT in September, including the five different voices, allowing users to have back-to-for conversations with the AI assistant.
‘Voice Mode’ was originally only available to paying subscribers, but in November OpenAI announced that the feature would become free to all users with the mobile app.
And ChatGPT’s interactions are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Last week, OpenAI said the latest update to its generative AI model can mimic human cadences in its verbal responses and even attempt to detect people’s moods.
OpenAI says the latest model, called GPT-4o, runs faster than previous versions and can reason through text, audio and video in real time.
During a demonstration during OpenAI’s May 13 announcement, the AI bot chatted in real time, adding emotion — specifically “more drama” — to its voice as requested.
It also took effort to extrapolate a person’s emotional state by looking at a selfie video of their face, aided by language translations, step-by-step math problems and more.
GPT-4o, short for ‘omni’, is not yet generally available. It will gradually make its way to user selection over the coming weeks and months. The model’s text and image capabilities have already been rolled out and will even reach some of those using the free version of ChatGPT, but the new voice mode will only be available to paid subscribers of ChatGPT Plus.
While most haven’t gotten their hands on these newly announced features yet, the possibilities have sparked even more comparisons to the Spike Jonze-directed dystopian romance.
Johansson and her husband, Saturday Night Live personality Colin Jost, 41, are parents to son Cosmo, two. The actress is also mother to daughter Rose Dauriac, nine, with ex-husband Romain Dauriac, 42.
In the recent SNL finale, Jost unknowingly made a joke about the AI voice controversy. A tradition in the segment that Jost shares with Michael Che is for the pair to read jokes they’ve never seen before.
“The idea, of course, is to give each other fun jokes, almost supportive jokes that would never ruin our summer or our careers,” Colin said ominously.
“ChatGPT has released a new voice assistant feature inspired by Scarlett Johansson’s AI character in Her,” Colin began.
“Which I never looked at, because what’s the point of listening without that body?”
Then Jost bowed his head and covered his face in shame.
In the recent SNL finale, Colin Jost unknowingly made a joke about the AI voice controversy