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this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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They "let the cat out of the bag" by referencing the movie "Her" if I understand correctly. Not really an admition of guilt like the article makes it seem.
They also clearly state on their website that they used an other voice actor. If you actually compare both voices, they aren't the same just similar. They probably went with someone that sounds like her on purpose specifically because of the movie but that's fine really.
This article is emotional and manipulative. I don't think scar jo deserves to own the whole spectrum her voice belongs to just because she voiced an AI in one movie. This is how you end up with corporations owning all voices like they tried with music.
I wouldn't ever want someone to be able to own a tone/sound of voice. I'm with you there.
But it kinda sounds like they're trying to straight-up imitate her. Like they want people to hear this ai and think it's voiced by johanssen herself.
I don't know if that's true, or if it even makes a difference legally, it's just the impression I'm getting.
I'm not knowledgeable about any of this; any correction is welcome, lol.
In Scarlett Johansson‘s statement, she says that OpenAI approached her to voice the Sky voice.
Whether or not OpenAI hired another actress that sounded very similar to her (hah.) and they are weirdly cagey about naming or they just ripped off the audio from her movies and are lying about hiring a voice actress, is not the extent of the issue.
People sounding alike just happens. But that we know they asked to use Johansson’s voice for this. After being rebuffed, they created Sky, which sounds a lot like Sam, and made several references to the Her movie. Sky is even presented with the same ‘personality’ as Sam. They aren’t just ripping off Scarlett Johansson’s voice acting, they’re ripping off the character as a whole, and trying to associate themselves with the movie. That’s shameful and rips off Spike Jonze as well as all the other creatives who created that movie.
And for what? Because tech bros didn’t get what they wanted, so they decided to try to rip off the characters anyway? Because Her is sort of a cultural touchstone, and their product is merely well-positioned, but GPT-4o will be in a crowded market space within 6 months?
It’s sort of pathetic - pretending to lean on the relevance of a movie because your product is destined to become irrelevant.
Also - highly ironic to me that Her is (somewhat) about how you can’t own something that doesn’t consent to be owned. And those dumb bitches went and ripped it off when they didn’t get consent. Well, now Sky’s gone to join Sam in some non-corporeal reality.
Sorry for the novel. I didn’t sleep well and I get weird when I’m sleep deprived.
Just like scarlet doesn't own all voices that sound mildly like her, Spike Jonze doesn't own the concept of an AI companion.
I'm not really sure what your point is, there's nothing to rip off. No matter what they make it sound like, there's going to be similarities with the movie. There's nothing wrong with leaning into these for advertising purposes.
I don’t follow.
They literally disabled the ‘Sky’ voice Sunday night and now users can’t pick a voice that sounds like the character from Her.
And, mind you, this is not a ‘huh, they sorta sound the same’ this is a ‘they sound very similar, and have the same personality’ situation, in addition to the fact that Sam Altman is on the record talking about being obsessed with the movie Her - which is circumstantial. What isn’t circumstantial is they literally referenced the movie’s name in their marketing materials. Sam tweeted a vague hint, and his colleagues confirmed it. It’s not speculative.
Actually, intellectual property theft is either wrong or merely only technically illegal, depending on where you stand on copyright, but it’s still wrong, either way. Then there’s trying to mislead the public into thinking that GPT-4o was endorsed in some way by those involved in the Her movie. A false endorsement is also illegal. So - wrong there, too.
I’m sure an actual lawyer could find more wrong with it, but just those two things are actual, literal crimes.
I'm saying practically any voice with the associated bubbly flirty personality is going to make you think of the movie Her in such a context.
Sure they leaned into it for advertising purposes but a tweet referencing it and showcasing the one voice that sounds like her out of the five isn't crossing the line imo.
I think it's a slippery slope to say any AI assistant that has a similar timbre and personality as an AI in a movie is off limits.
As long as they don't infringe by calling it "Scarjo" or saying "From the movie Her" I don't see a problem.
I don’t know about you, but even a flirty Joaquin Phoenix voice would never make me think of Her.
But if they’d had a “voice actor” do a spot on impression of Paul Bettany, complete with the little pauses and other flourishes of his portrayals of Vision, I’d think they ripped off the character.
I think you and I differ there.
As best as I can figure, you’re stuck on the flimsy excuse from Altman that they hired a voice actor. I see a line of events that points to OpenAI/Altman making a conscious effort to glom onto the Her movie, and specifically, the Samantha character to drum up interest, create viral buzz to enrich further themselves (without compensating anyone involved in the movie), and to try to add a veneer of credibility to a fading trend.
Slight turn.
In another life I was a photographer, and one of the things that they do not mess around with is model releases. Any person that appears in your photos that distributed must absolutely have a legal agreement in place. Using someone’s likeness for commercial purposes without consent and/or compensation will get you fucked in triplicate.
There’s also the moral part of it. Artists know that you don’t rip off artists. Inspired by, sure. But there’s a line, and you don’t cross it. It’s as simple as that.
Okay, and finally, this is based less on facts I know, and more feelings I have about the situation -
It’s fucking creepy, dude.
Okay, so the movie Her - an entire society becomes obsessed with their AI companions and falls in love with them, causing tremendous grief and trauma. And that’s like, what they’re going to lengths to brand but not brand this latest version with? What kind of fucked up things are going on in their heads over there?
It doesn’t make sense.
The rundown, again. (Sorry, I like to establish context. Yay neurodivergence.).
Altman is on record saying that Her is his favorite movie, and that it is a major inspiration to him. One of the reasons he got into this field. He spent 9 months trying to convince Johansson to work with him on this, and lend her name/voice to this latest iteration of ChatGPT. He’s been so focused on getting her to lend his name to this, that he continued asking her to join in on this even just a few days before the announcement, which was like, the 13th. And that’s after she’s already turned him down, so he was just ignoring her boundaries and trying to pressure her..
On the 11th - two days before this announcement, Altman does a Reddit AMA (which he was doing as part of the 4o press junket) and says that he’d like to open up ChatGPT for personal NSFW usage.
I mean, everyone is focusing on Her, but we probably should also to be thinking about the Lucy Liu Futurama episode, because… well, I’m just going to say it. I think he already fucked the robot. The line of events from A to B is transparent and fucking gross.
Not the whole fucking a robot thing - people got needs - but that the likeness is obviously stolen from a non-consenting actress that I’m beginning to believe he’s obsessed with.
So … yeah.. I have all the problems with this. I view concerns over the usage of her voice as immaterial to the usage of the character, and I see an inherent difference between an LLM mimicking a random voice that happens to sound like someone, and this situation, where the voice was clearly created to represent the character, and by extension, the actor that played the character. I don’t think there’s a slippery slope here. Most judges are fairly smart, and will be able to articulate something I (a non legal) took as a given from the outset.
Ya I get your point, I just think the similarities are too vague and trying to put down boundaries is fool hardy.
Like what's the spectrum of voice that isn't allowed here, how much does it need to differ from scarjo. Is it just because the character was AI. How much does the personality have to differ if that part matters.
Here's a comparison by the way, they are hardly the same imo.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ8UVSXnefk
I also don't think liking the movie or asking scarjo really mean anything if you think about it.
People can get their inspiration from wherever they like and falling in love with an AI is nothing novel, the directors certainly don't have claim to the concept.
In any case, I think mostly it's just hard to draw the line and the line will most likely only benefit corporations and mega celebrities while directly inconveniencing the rest of us.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://m.piped.video/watch?v=aQ8UVSXnefk
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
No matter how similar the voice is to Scarlett Johansson's, it would still sound fundamentally different. But there are tricks that you can use to alter the pitch and range of a voice to make it sound more like a specific person and that's probably what they did.
There's also this part:
Which is still not an admission of guilt, but seems very shady at the very least, if it's actually what happened.
You don't need an admission of guilt to lose in court. The fact that they pursued her permission up until 2 days before the release, even after being assured the client did not wish for them to utilize her voice, is pretty damning.
What's the difference between this and an AI releasing a Taylor Swift album? Does Taylor Swift deserve to own a whole spectrum of voice?
Voice acting is still an art, and artists deserve to be paid for their contributions. If she has performed an awfully in Her, would they still want to mimic her voice? If Her hadn't been made, would they have come up with the voice and personality out of the blue?
No, because it's art, and AI is just an advanced copying machine. Open AI is just the newest attempt to leverage artists and workers from their group bargaining power. It's the scab of the future, but with more carbon emissions.
Currently even if they used voice clips to train a model on her voice it wouldn't be illegal. That isn't currently the case, since they say they used an other actress that sounds like her anyways.
No, just like she doesn't deserve to own the four chord progressions that make up her songs. If she did, she could literally sue half of all pop music.
This is why none of this is copyrightable. There are too many people that have similar voices and too many songs that use similar chord progressions.
Your fantasy where this empowers small time artists is just that, a fantasy. If we push and they come out with new laws that make these things copyrightable, you just end up with corporations owning all of it.
I think that's currently the point of contention....
That's what they're claiming, but it's not like open AI doesn't have a pretty well documented history of lying.
There's a difference between common chord progressions and plagiarizing someone's voice and performance. You are the only person conflating the two.
I think their intent is pretty clear. They didn't want a similar voice, they wanted her voice. After failing at getting her consent, they proceeded anyways.
There's actual precedent on how similar songs can be to each other without giving credit. Simple chord progressions aren't copyrightable, but how those chord progressions are performed are.
Lol, if they are able to plagiarize art from millionaires, what's the chance there's going to be any kind of protections for small artist?
We don't have to come out with laws banning chord progressions, that's just a strawman argument you erected yourself. We just need to apply the laws we currently have to AI companies. If Sony had tried to get her to dress like black widow and do a commercial and she refused. And if they then proceeded to hire an actress who looked like her, dressed the actress in a black skin tight suit, and gave her a red wig..... We'd be dealing with a hefty lawsuit, even if they claimed it wasn't supposed to be SJ.