05/23/2024

The Scarlett Johansson Dispute Erodes Public Trust In OpenAI

In the court of public opinion, the actress seems to be winning

Scarlett Johannson has gone to war with OpenAI; in the battle for public opinion, OpenAI is losing—badly.

Last week, OpenAI released an update of its AI chatbot called ChatGPT-4o, which featured a female voice talking to its users. Many people pointed out that the voice, which sometimes seemed to veer into flirtation, was eerily similar to Scarlett Johannson’s in the 2013 dystopian sci-fi film Her. (Johannson voices a chatbot who falls in love with the protagonist in the film.) OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has long talked about how much the movie inspired the company’s products, and even made the connection clear last week by tweeting the title of the movie.

But on Monday, Johannson released a statement saying OpenAI had asked her to be the voice of the chatbot, and when she refused, they found a soundalike. Johannson said that she was “shocked, angered and in disbelief” by the turn of events. The company contended that the voice was not inspired by her, and recorded by a different actor—but proceeded to pull the voice of the chatbot anyway. 

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.