Actor Scarlett Johansson on Monday (local time) stated that she declined Open AI's request to provide her voice for ChatGPT 4o chatbot, and said she was “shocked” and “angered” that the Artificial Intelligence company used a voice that sounded "so eerily similar" to hers.
Johansson, in a detailed statement, said that her lawyers asked the company to pull down the voice of Sky, one of the new voices in the GPT-4o chatbot.
"Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system. 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," the actor's statement, provided to NPR, reads.
She clarified, "After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer".
"Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named 'Sky' sounded like me".
She further wrote in the statement, "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".
Johansson further stated that she was "forced to hire legal counsel, who wrote two letters to Mr. Altman and OpenAl", asking them to detail the exact process by which they created the Sky voice and, consequently, OpenAl "reluctantly agreed to take down the 'Sky' voice", she said.
The actor, who said there are "questions that deserve absolute clarity", added, "I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected.”
Meanwhile, the company said, they are planning to halt the use of one of its ChatGPT voices. In a social media post, OpenAI said it is “working to pause” Sky.
"We’ve heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky. We are working to pause the use of Sky while we address them," the company wrote on X.
OpenAI released its latest GPT-4o language model a few days ago, which can chat in real time, adding emotion to its voice as requested.
