Written by Dawn Chmielowski and Anna Tong
Scarlett Johansson on Monday accused OpenAI of creating a voice for the ChatGPT system that sounded “eerily similar” to the actress after she refused to voice the chatbot herself.
Johansson made the comments in a statement issued hours after the artificial intelligence company announced that it had deleted the audio called “Sky.”
Skye's voice was not an imitation of Johansson, but that of a different professional actress, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said in an emailed statement to Reuters on Monday.
“Skye's voice is not Scarlett Johansson's voice, and was never intended to resemble her voice. We cast the voice actor behind Skye's voice before any contact with Ms. Johansson,” Altman said.
“Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have temporarily stopped using Sky Voice in our products. We apologize to Ms. Johansson that we did not communicate better.”
The fight over the rights to actors' voices and images has become a focus of attention in Hollywood, as studios consider how to use artificial intelligence to create new entertainment, and as computer-generated images and sounds become difficult to distinguish from those of humans.
Johansson said in the statement that Altman contacted her last September and offered to hire her to voice ChatGPT, an offer she declined.
“After nine months, my friends, family and the general public noticed how similar I was to the latest system called Sky,” she said.
“When I heard the demo released, I was shocked, angry and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would go with a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that even my closest friends and the media couldn't tell the difference.”
Johansson added that Altman “hinted that the resemblance was intentional” via a tweet in reference to the 2013 film “Her,” about a man who develops a relationship with an artificial intelligence assistant voiced by the actress.
Johansson's memo was reported by journalists from NPR and other news outlets. Her publicist also shared it with Reuters.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment following Johansson's statement. She said she hired legal counsel to ask about the audio creation process.
OpenAI demonstrated its latest AI prototype, called GPT-4o, last week, with voice capabilities that allow users to talk to a chatbot and get real-time responses, marking a major advance in more realistic AI conversations.
