Scarlett Johansson Threatens to Sue OpenAI Over ‘Eerily Similar’ Chatbot Voice

Scarlett Johansson poses for photographers at the photo call for the film "Asteroid City" at the 76th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, on May 24, 2023. (Joel C Ryan/Invisione)

OpenAI said it plans to discontinue using one of its ChatGPT voices after Scarlett Johansson alleged it sounded “eerily similar” to her own.

On Monday, the company said it is “working to pause” the voice known as Sky, one of five voice users can speak with when using ChapGPT.

“We’ve heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky,” OpenAI wrote on X. “We are working to pause the use of Sky while we address them.”

Ms. Johansson, who voiced a fictional AI assistant in the 2013 film “Her,” was among those raising questions about how it selects its lifelike audio options on its flagship artificial intelligence chatbot.

The 39-year-old actress issued a statement claiming she had been approached last year by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who asked if she would like to lend her voice to the ChatGPT.

“Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system,” she said in a statement provided to The Epoch Times by her publicist, Marcel Pariseau. “He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people.”

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Ms. Johansson said after considering the offer, she decided for “personal reasons” to decline.

Nine months later, she said people began pointing out how much the system named “Sky” sounded like her. 

“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,” Ms. Johansson said. “Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word ‘her’ - a reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human.”

She also alleges that just days before the ChatGPT 4.0 demo was released, Mr. Altman reached out to her agent, asking if she would reconsider his offer.

“Before we could connect, the system was out there,” Ms. Johansson continued.

Ms. Johansson said because of OpenAI’s actions, she was “forced” to hire an attorney who wrote two letters to Mr. Altman and his company, citing the similarity of her voice and “Sky.” They asked the company to provide in detail the process it used to create the “Sky” voice.

At that point, OpenAI “reluctantly” agreed to take down the “Sky” voice.  

“In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity,” Ms. Johansson said. “I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected.”

OpenAI tried to debunk the theory regarding Ms. Johansson’s voice in a blog post that accompanied its earlier announcement on X.  

“We believe AI voice should not deliberately mimic a celebrity’s distinctive voice—Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johanson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice,” the company wrote in a blog post dated May 19.

But OpenAI said it could not reveal the name of the voice talent due to privacy issues. The company did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for more information.

OpenAI said in a statement to The Associated Press that it had cast the voice of “Sky” “before any outreach” to Ms. Johansson.

“The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson’s, and it was never intended to resemble hers,” Mr. Altman said. “Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky’s voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better.”

The San Francisco-based company launched its voice capabilities for ChatGPT in September 2023. The roll-out, which included five different voices, allowed users to engage in back-and-forth conversation with the AI assistant.

Previously, “Voice Mode” was only available to paid subscribers, but in November, the company announced it would become a free feature for mobile app users.

ChatGPT interactions are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

OpenAI said the latest update to its generative AI model can mimic human cadences in its verbal responses and can try to detect users’ moods.

The latest model, GPT-4o, short for “omni,” is reportedly faster than earlier versions and can reason across text, audio, and video in real-time, the company says.

During a demonstration on May 13, the AI bot chatted in real time and added “more drama” to its voice as requested. It also tried to determine a person’s emotional state by looking at a selfie video of their face, aided in language translations, step-by-step math problems, and more.

GPT-4o is not widely available, yet, but it will be released to select users in the coming weeks and months. The system’s text and image capabilities have begun rolling out and are expected to reach some who use ChatGPT’s free version. The new voice mode will only be available to paid ChatGPT Plus subscribers.

While most ChatGPT users have not experienced these newly announced features, the capabilities have conjured up even more comparisons to Spike Jonze’s dystopian romance “Her,” which follows an introverted man, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who falls in love with an AI-operating system, voiced by Ms. Johansson, leading to many complications.

Mr. Altman appeared to nod to the notion by simply posting the word “her” on X, the day that GPT-4o was unveiled.

Proposed Legislation

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) urged the House on Tuesday to consider his legislation following Ms. Johansson’s questions about the voice used by OpenAI.

The AI Foundational Model Transparency Act would establish “transparency standards for information that high-impact foundation models must provide to the FTC [Federal Trade Commission] and the public, including how those AI models are trained and information about the source of data used.”

“Scarlett Johansson’s is not the first case of this kind and will not be the last, but it is a high-profile example of the growing need for transparency in AI models, “ Mr. Beyer said in a statement. ”Congress can help solve this problem by requiring creators of AI foundation models to share key information with regulators and the public, which is exactly what my bill would do.”